


Sixteen springs, and sixteen summers gone now

by TheDameintheRaininMaine



Series: Round and round, in the circle game [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Bisexual Sansa Stark, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, First Kiss, Foster Care, Grief/Mourning, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reunions, Summer Camp Shenanigans, Underage Drinking, age differences have been compressed, and a whole lot of fooling around?, are you ready for the fireflies, john hughes-movie style confessionals, the moonlit skies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24798487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDameintheRaininMaine/pseuds/TheDameintheRaininMaine
Summary: Four years after the death of their father, the Stark children return to Camp Durrandon, where they spent many summers. Arya is excited to reunite with old friends, and an old crush, but both of them have had a lot happen in those missing years, and some things they haven't yet fully dealt with.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Jon Snow/Ygritte (minor), Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell (minor)
Series: Round and round, in the circle game [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072487
Comments: 72
Kudos: 182





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I compressed most of the character's age differences here- Jon, Robb and Gendry are 18, Sansa is 17, Arya is 16, Bran is 15 and most of the others are relative.

Camp Durrandon was the same as it had always been. Two lines of sixteen cabins, separated by gender and age, and two more lines of staff cabins in behind. The mess hall, the showers, the sports field, the drama barn, the campfire circle, the stables. They were all the same. The lake gleamed in the summer sunshine, the canoes tied and floating. The trees spring up behind the camp buildings, the forest the same as it had been for a hundred years, as it would be for a hundred more. 

Even as she climbs out of the bus, Arya can’t believe it’s been four years. 

The three buses pull into the front, in order of the distance of their departure; King’s Landing, Old Town, White Harbour. Standing around, Arya feels like a tree rooted in place. The majority of the children milling around her are in camper yellow, their names and cabin numbers currently being written on their backs by the blue clad unit counselors. Arya spies her brother Bran, carefully guiding his wheelchair down the bus ramp, in his CIT red. 

Arya feels somehow both perfectly in place and out of place. Sixteen years old, despite her small size, her jean shorts and purple shirt mark her for what she is this year, a junior counselor. The picture on it, of the horses below the seven pointed star, tells of what. Horseback riding this year. 

On one side is her sister Sansa, seventeen and in purple like her. Her shirt, unlike Arya’s, bears an image of mummer’s masks, she’s teaching drama this summer. On her other side is Meera Reed, an old friend. Eighteen and in the green worn only by senior counselors, she puts her hands on her hips and addresses Arya. 

“I can’t believe you betrayed me. You always said when you could come back to camp, you’d teach archery with me. I’m stuck with another Mormont this year!”

Arya smiles. 

“Lyra had a foot in ahead of me, the Mormonts have run archery here since we were campers. And there's another one after her, so there might be another coming too.”

Meera still looks miffed, but they drag their bags to check the list for which staff cabin is theirs this year. 

Sansa’s going to be in Cabin 2 with Margaery, the drama senior counselor, and the aforementioned Mormont. Arya feels a pinch of heartache. When she was younger, she always shared a cabin with her sister, even when they should have been in separate age groups. Meera’s finger spots their names, they’re in Cabin 3, right next door.

“At least we’re in the same cabin,” Arya wheedles, “Who’s our third?”

Meera runs a finger down the list. 

“Ygritte.”

Arya’s surprised. She had heard from Jon that she was planning to return to camp that year, but she still hadn’t been sure if she would get to see her at all. 

Well, since it turns out the list says Ygritte’s the senior riding counselor, she’ll get to see her a lot. 

Cabin 3 is a short walk up a hill, under a tree. 

“I don’t remember the staff cabins being this far from the mess hall,” Arya complains. 

Meera laughs. 

“It’s been four years Arya, you might have forgotten a lot of things.”

The cabin contains three cots with trunks, a table, and a small bathroom. Arya throws her duffel on her cot and starts unpacking as fast as she can. She cringes at the sight of her two pairs of jeans. The Stormlands are extremely hot and humid in the summer, but you can’t ride horses in shorts, so she’s stuck. 

“I’m going to go check on things in the stables,” she tells Meera, “And then down to the waterfront.”

“Will you make it to orientation?”

“I’ll try, but it’s not like Brienne can send me home if I don’t.”

“Don’t test her, she might,” Meera warns. 

With a laugh, Arya leaves the cabin. The stables are in back of the camp, next to a trail that leads into the Mistwood National Park that the campgrounds are a part of. 

They are much as she remembers. Dusty wood and the ever present smell of animal and leather. She stops to pet Nan, the old mare she had learned to ride on all those summers ago, on the nose, before she continues her search. 

She doesn’t find what she’s looking for, but before she leaves, she runs into Ygritte, literally. The senior green pairs well with her flaming red hair. 

“Didn’t see you there, sorry,” Arya’s voice rushes, as her breathing returns to normal. 

Ygritte raises an eyebrow. 

“So I take it I get you as my underling this year?”

Arya laughs. Ygritte’s only twenty, but always seemed to Arya like she was so much older than her. 

“And cabin mate too. Don’t worry, we gave you the bunk closest to the bathroom. “

“I’ll be up there, I just had to come down and see old Crow here for a bit,” she tells her, rubbing the old black gelding on the nose. 

There’s a long silence, which Arya breaks with a cough.

“Has Jon written to you since he shipped out?” she asks. There’s no reason to beat around the bush. 

Ygritte smiles sadly and shakes her head. 

“He hasn’t written us either,” she assures her. Arya’s memory of Jon leaving home in his uniform, promising to write them all about training and what he’s being taught. He’d enlisted the day of his eighteenth birthday, and had been gone since. 

“I wouldn’t expect him to,” Ygritte admits, “I know the WAF takes training seriously, we used to go past the airfields all the time on long rides.”

Ygritte was from the north like them, but the far north. The far, far north. The part where you could ride on a road for hours and hours and never pass a single town. She lived on a sheep station. Arya still wasn’t sure why she even came to summer camp, it seemed to her like her normal life was like camp. 

It’s with a curt nod that Arya leaves Ygritte to whatever it is she was doing. 

The waterfront remains the same, the rocky shore and the dock, the lines of canoes. The posted signs every few feet, of the strictly enforced rules. 

Arya steps in the lake, just far enough to get her feet wet. The feeling of the cool water and algae collecting on her toes is one she’s missed terribly. It had been far too long. 

Her reminiscing is interrupted by a whistle that makes her jump and trip onto the ground. 

“No swimming!” a voice behind her yells. 

She stands back up, rubbing her bruised backside. 

“I wasn’t swimming, I was standing-”

She turns to where the other voice is coming from, her own freezing up in her chest. 

Taller than before, and broader than ever. His hair wasn’t quite as long, but his blue eyes are just as bright. 

Completely unbidden, Arya feels a smile sprout upon her face. 

“Gendry Waters,” she says, sauntering towards him. Her insides are doing an energetic dance, but she’s always been strangely confident around him. He’s wearing the red and white t-shirt and trunks marking him as a lifeguard, the ultimate authority over the waterfront. “This place must be hard up if they gave you gainful employment.”

He grins, wolfishly, and her stomach does a series of increasingly acrobatic flips 

“Arry,” he says, his voice disbelieving, “Never thought I’d see you back here. You look-”

“The same?” 

Arya knows that’s not completely the truth. She was a skinny little shrimp at twelve, and had been the victim of an utterly terrible haircut that same summer. She still wasn’t exactly tall or womanly, but she thinks she looks less like a little homeless boy than before. Shirt color aside, she’s even dressed exactly the same. 

“I finally started showering regularly and brushing my hair of my own accord. Sansa was so pleased.”

She eyes the whistle and shirt, and whistles herself. 

“You’re the lifeguard now? What happened to Anguy?”

Gendry chuckles, and Arya feels the memory of the goofy old lifeguard, the one who so often looked the other way for their group’s little pranks. 

“Anguy got the boot last summer when he got caught with a girl in his cabin.”

Arya raised an eyebrow. Anguy was charming and decently looking, he’d always had girls all over him.

“How was that strange, it can’t have been the first time?”

Gendry inhales roughly. 

“It’s been a few years since you were here Arya, Anguy was twenty-two last summer...the girl he got caught with was only seventeen.”

Arya feels her lungs deflate. 

“Classy as always I guess.”

There’s another pause, but it’s a comfortable one. She was always so comfortable around him, despite the reminder of how many years it had been. 

“What else have I missed?” she asks. 

Gendry puts his hands behind his head, chewing on his lip while he thought it over. 

“Lommy and Weasel haven’t come back for a few years. Hot Pie skipped a year, but he’s working in the kitchen this summer.”

“Really?” Arya asked, surprised. Hot Pie had always been large and very fond of food. 

“I worked in the same restaurant he did in King’s Landing this past year, and I let him know there was an opening here and he jumped at it. Wants to go to culinary school after he graduates.”

Arya laughs, thinking of the boy who’s greatest asset to their group being his ability to sneak them all extra snacks working in a loud kitchen. 

“What about you?” Gendry asks. 

Arya feels her stomach drop. 

“What about me?”

“Have all of the illustrious Starks returned to camp for real this year?”

Arya pauses too, and hugs her middle. 

“Sansa and I are junior counselors- she’s in the drama barn, I’m at the stables. Bran’s a CIT, Rickon’s the only of us who’s still an actual camper.”

Gendry’s eyes fade for a moment, so she continues. 

“Jon joined the WAF as soon as he finished school, they haven’t even given him leave. And Robb is trying to work out the mess that is Dad’s company…”

Her voice trails off. Talk of the company always meant having to talk about Mum and Dad being gone, and she’s not ready to repeat all of that, not even to Gendry. 

“Seven hells,” Gendry curses, “They’ve really got Jon up there flying planes?”

Arya smiles. 

“We don’t know yet, he might end up a navigator or a mechanic or something. Not all of them can be pilots.”

Arya’s chest is warm. It’s such a pleasant feeling, and like being back at camp, it feels like it’s been too long since she’s felt this way. 

“Gendry!” a voice says. Arya turns, and sees the source, a girl perhaps a year her junior with dark hair in CIT red, “We’re going to be late for orientation.”

“I’ll catch up to you, Shireen!” He yells after her. He turns and points down the path, and the two of them begin to walk side by side. 

“Who’s she?” Arya asks. She doesn’t recognize her. And after attending Camp Durrandon from the ages of eight to twelve, she expects to. 

“My foster sister, she’s never been here before.” Gendry replies. His eyes look a little haunted at the words, and Arya’s heart aches, remembering his stories of having to spend his childhood being bounced around like a pinball. It was only through an outreach ministry that he had even been able to attend camp. 

When they speed up, Arya’s eyes go wide seeing the side of Shireen’s face which is angry pink and puckered, as though she had been burned.

Her mouth starts to open involuntarily, but Gendry grabs her hand and squeezes it. 

“Don’t say anything. Please.”

And with a deep breath, Arya keeps her words to herself. Gendry looks surprised, she understands. She could never do that before.

They file in among the crowd for orientation, colorful dots among a sea of yellow. Up front, at the flagpole stands Beric Dondarrion, the camp owner, and Brienne, in Arya’s childhood the indomitable head girl’s counselor, now the activities director. 

She’s got a clipboard and her whistle, and she’s making the same announcements that precede every camp session. Arya knows them by heart: no wandering outside camp by yourself, no going into the forest, no screwing around at the waterfront, lights out at 9. As an activity counselor, Arya has extra responsibilities, namely the upkeep of all the horses and the stables themselves, but also extra perks. Among them, better pay, and that once lights out came, no one much cared where they stayed. 

Brienne leads the group around camp, showing them the cabins, the waterfront, all the activity areas. The tuck shop selling overpriced candy and t-shirts. The bathrooms, showers and laundry. 

Orientation ends at the mess hall, a glorious smell emanating from within. Only the kitchen is actually inside, the line moving past several service windows ending in the open salad bar. The rest of the hall is long wooden tables under the cover of a white canopy, printed with the seven pointed star. 

Fried chicken on the first night appears to still be the tradition. Arya plunks two drumsticks on her tray along with a heap of potatoes, before moving along the line and joining the others at the staff table. 

Gendry’s barely poking at his food as he keeps turning to where Shireen sits. The CITs sit out among campers, they’re being trained on making sure they behave. Arya’s eyes follow his, and when they recite the grace of the seven before eating, Shireen looks completely bewildered. 

Arya catches Gendry’s eye curiously. He reaches under the table and squeezes her hand. 

“Please don’t ask here, I’ll tell you later.”

Later, when the welcome sundae bar comes out, she returns the words. They stand to get in line, when Bran rolls in front of them, leading his cabin to the line. 

“I’ll tell you later too.”

Once the meal has winded down, Brienne stands and leads everyone to first-night campfire. 

The smell of the wood smoke fills Arya’s nose, and she breathes it in. It smells like burned marshmallows and coming home. 

Missandei has apparently become the campfire leader, sitting at the microphone holding her guitar. Arya is pleased. Missandei speaks five languages and knows lots of songs in all of them, not just the goofy ones about the Maiden and the Smith. 

Arya spares a glance across the fire to where Gendry has sat down next to Shireen. It suddenly occurs to Arya where Shireen’s confusion might come from. If it weren’t for the grace before meals and the silly songs at campfire, you could forget quite easily that Camp Dundarron was run by the United Westerosi Church of the Seven. Arya frowns. Even in the north, where more than half the population attended other churches, most people still recognized the symbols and prayers. 

Eventually, Missandei’s voice quiets, and Brienne claps to alert time to return to units. 

When they make it up the hill toward cabin 3, Ygritte takes off. She’s on first patrol that night, and gets to walk around shining flashlights into each cabin to ensure lights out is being followed. Arya changes into her pajamas, sweat shorts and a t-shirt with the logo of the White Harbour Direwolves, a local baseball team. It used to be Jon’s, and nearly comes down to where Arya’s shorts end. Laying back on her bunk, Arya asks Meera, 

“Do you think Brienne still has that weird saddle Jojen used to have to use?”

“The one with the seat belt and the extra straps? Probably, they didn’t have to get it special or anything, I think it’s been around since the older Tyrell’s were here.”

That makes sense. Margaery’s older brothers both had been to camp years before any of them, and she’d heard that Willas kept riding years after he’d been thrown from a horse. Arya’s face turns pensive. She wonders where it’s ended up. 

“Trying to get Bran riding again?” Meera asks. 

Arya nods. 

“There’s a ranch that does therapeutic riding up further north from us, but we haven’t been able to work out the logistics of getting him there yet. I thought maybe if I could get him excited about it again, he would push us more at home to figure it out.”

There’s a pause, and Arya asks something that’s been bugging her since they got off the bus. 

“Why didn’t Jojen come back this summer? You said you’ve been here every year.”

Meera’s quiet for a minute. 

“He ended up in A&E at the end of the school year. He’s on a clinical trial now to see if a new anti-seizure medication works for him, and can’t be too far from a hospital for monitoring. He was so upset when I left.”

Arya’s chest tightens. She hadn’t meant to poke a wound. 

Once Ygritte returns and flops onto her bunk, Arya stands. 

“I’m going out for a bit.”

“Heading to the kissing tree?” Ygritte asks with a smirk.

Arya snorts, and ignores the fluttering in her chest. She’s referring to the tree behind the stables, next to the sign where Mistwood Park starts, and the property line ends. It’s one of the only parts of the camp that can give you a modicum of privacy. 

“Just to the pier.”

Ygritte's rolled onto her stomach and is out already. Meera shrugs. She’s pulled out a book and has it open against her knees. 

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll make it to the kissing tree eventually.”

Arya leaves the cabin, huffing, and wishing she had never confided in Meera years ago about the last time she had snuck out the pier. 

It was an easy enough walk. Their little crew, the Brotherhood Gendry had called it once, would sneak out after lights out. Hot Pie would sneak them all extra snacks, and they would plot itching powder revenge and sprees of short sheeting. 

The last time they had done it, it had just been the two of them. 

Halfway there, she wonders if Gendry will even be here. It’s been four years, they can’t have kept it up that long, really?

But there he sits, at the end of the pier, feet dangling in the water. Arya’s chest tightens at the sight, the moon is reflecting off his dark hair, shorter than he used to wear it. 

She tries not to think too hard about the last time they’d come out here, that night that it had been just them.  
_  
“Sansa’s gone off to the kissing tree with Joffrey,” she had told him, huffing. “She won’t shut up about it, and won’t believe me that he’s mean to all the other kids.”_

_“Let that be her problem. I’ll help you sneak into his cabin and drop stink bugs in his clothes.”_

_Arya had giggled at that. It seemed appropriate. She had still felt huffy though. Ever since Sansa had met Joffrey that summer, she hadn’t wanted to spend any time at all with her._

_There’s something else too._

_“Why does everyone make such a fuss about kissing anyway?”_

_Arya had gotten her period earlier that summer, and questions like that had started coming to her more and more. Most of the other girls, even Sansa and her friends, had been so nice about it too, actually answering her questions instead of laughing and leaving her behind. It had been a change, like those silly pamphlets they got in school had described, but Arya, somehow, didn’t feel any different at all. Most of the time._

_Gendry had shrugged at that._

_“Cause it’s fun, I ‘spose.”_

_Arya had pouted. Not that she’d assumed he’d never kissed a girl, he was fourteen after all, and that seemed so much older than twelve._

_“If it’s so fun...can you show me?”_

_Gendry was taken aback._

_“How come?”_

_Arya huffed even further._

_“Cause I want to know!”_

_Gendry had looked back and forth, half looking like he was worried someone was going to sneak up on them, half like he was certain this was a prank._

_“Promise you won’t push me in the lake?”_

_Arya thought from the outside it must have looked like a first kiss from the movies, with the clear blue lake in the background and the moon hanging overhead. It made her feel that way too, giddy, warm, her heart racing._

_That was the last time she saw Gendry. All of the Starks were gone from camp in the morning._  
  
Arya sits beside him at the end of the pier, tucking her knees up to her chest. 

“Which of us should go first?”

After a moment of silence, they both stick out their fists. 

“Dragon, wolf, stag!”

Arya wins, though she still doesn’t understand how stag beats dragon. 

Gendry leans back against the pier, face staring upward at the stars. 

“The day I got home from camp, my foster dad kicked me out. I was just glad my things were already packed and I didn’t have to throw everything in a bin bag. The woman I was sent to next was...the worst one yet. There’s still an active court case ongoing because of her. After that, I got sent to live with Mr. Davos and his wife, and them, me and Shireen have been together for three years.”

Arya nods. She’s still sitting with her knees pulled up against her. She can’t see his face. 

“That was one, now it’s your turn.”

One. She only has to tell one story, or one secret. That was how these always went. 

“We all left camp that morning because Beric got a call that my father had died of a heart attack.”

Gendry bolts upright. 

“Life went to chaos after that. There’s more...a lot more...but that’s just my one for tonight.”

Gendry starts to lean forward. Arya’s still hunched over. His hand reaches out to rest on her back, but hesitates. Arya pushes herself back ever so slightly and his hands lingers softly against her back, the warmth going through straight to her skin. She swallows roughly, a single tear running down her cheek.

“It’s late,” she says. “We should be getting back.”

Gendry nods, though she can’t see him. 

“Yeah. Swim tests are in the morning.”

Arya chuckles. 

“I almost forgot about swim tests.”

“So you’re just going sleep in tomorrow, not get your clip and then spend the whole summer in a life jacket at the waterfront?”

Arya sticks one foot in the lake and uses it to fling a bit of algae at Gendry’s face. 

“Your name may be Waters, but if you think I’m going to give up the title of summer-wide lake zombie hunt queen, you’ve got something else coming.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ygritte’s alarm wakes the three of them twenty minutes before Reville. 

Arya groans into her pillow, and Meera jumps up and starts pulling on her clothes. 

“Quick!” she tells her, “Or all the good cereals will be gone!”

Arya groans again, but gets up and stretches. 

No one who works activities has breakfast duty, so most of them leave bed before the campers in order to get first dibs on breakfast before they have to set up their activity areas for the morning. 

Arya’s stomach growls and she ignores the smell of the cooking breakfast pizza from one of the stations to grab a box of Fruit Flakes from the buffet station. It’s always the same a pile of single serving cereal boxes and yogurt cups along with whatever the hot breakfast was that day.

She gets sidetracked by movement by one of the station windows. She grins at the sight of the curly hair atop it’s head, and she can’t keep her joy to herself. 

“Hot Pie!” she yells happily. 

Hot Pie is clearly not paying attention because he jumps and thumps his head on the top of the window.

He rubs his head and blinks blearily looking at her, 

“Arry?” he asks. Arya chuckles. She wonders if he even remembers that’s not really her name. 

He passes her a bowl and the milk pitcher and she eats her breakfast standing up while they catch up. There’s not too much to go over really. 

When she tells him that she’d already seen Gendry the day before he had nodded. 

“He always liked you better than the rest of us. Make sure to be nice, it’s been a hard few years for him.”

Arya’s surprised. That’s more wisdom than she thought Hot Pie had in his entire body. Maybe they’ve all changed a lot. 

Hot Pie has to leave when he gets hollered at to come and help. Arya even smiles seeing the shaggy head and badly burned face of the man the meaner campers dared to call the Hound.

“Clegane, they still let you stay here?” she asks, spying the back of the old camp maintenance man’s head. 

“Fuck off,” he says, without even a look to see who spoke. 

After shoveling down her cereal, Arya leaves to help Ygritte at the stables. They feed the horses and muck out the stalls before running back to the cabin to change into their swimsuits and heading down to the waterfront. 

The crowd has already begun to gather, boys and girls on opposite sites, counselors and CITs in back. Arya and Ygritte sneak into the line, next to Shireen, who looks somewhat apprehensive. 

Gendry blows his whistle, and raises his voice until everyone can hear him.

“OK! Here’s how this works. Today you get your clip, you will wear this clip at all times here at the lake. If I catch you without a clip, I get to stuff you in an inflatable life jacket until you’re past the sand. Yes-” 

He intones with a hint of humor, 

“-This includes counselors too. The first test will be swimming to the first row of flags and back-”

He points out about twenty feet in the lake, where blue flags mark off the shallow parts of the water. 

“Do this and you will get a blue clip, meaning you may swim freely in the same area. The second test will be holding your breath underwater for forty five seconds. This will earn you a yellow clip. You must have at least a yellow clip to use any of the camp’s canoes. Now the last test-”

He points out to the middle of the lake, where a rock can be seen. They call it the island, but it’s really just a large rock.

“You will swim to the island and back to shore without stopping. If you get tired and need one of us to come and get you, roll on your back and raise your right hand. If you complete this swim and earn your red clip, you may swim anywhere in the lake. But only when one of us is on lifeguard duty.”

He points down the sand to Lem and Tom, two of the other lifeguards. 

He blows his whistle and motions for the boys to come and test first. 

Arya watches Bran roll his wheelchair to the end of the pier while the other boys are wading in. He locks the wheels and lowers himself to the end of the wooden dock. Throwing his left leg over his right, he is able to get himself off the dock with a sort of twist and push. 

Gendry’s watching him, Arya realizes, to wait until he gets in position with the other boys. It doesn’t take long, and she can see Bran whispering words of encouragement to the younger boys. And next to her, Shireen watches him too. 

“He’ll be fine,” Arya assures her, “All of us Starks can swim. Our mother was a champion in secondary school and all of us could swim before we could walk.”

Her bathing suit still bears the black and blue logo of the Cerwyn Dolphins, the team she had swam for until this past school year. Bran had spent so many afternoons at the seven center pool, claiming that in the water it almost felt like his body was all his again. Mum had long claimed that all of them had Tully blood as much as Stark. 

Shireen looks at her askance. 

“You’re Arya Stark then,” she says, “Gendry told me yesterday. He said you used to be friends.”

“He did? We’re still friends,” Arya objects.

Shireen nods. 

“I’m glad. He doesn’t seem to have many friends.”

Gendry’s already blown the whistle twice, and several of the boys have stepped out of the water and accepted their blue or yellow clips. Bran is not among them. When the long swim starts, Arya watches several of the younger boys watching Bran and whispering. When his hand slams onto the pier, Arya steps forward to congratulate him, and help him back to his chair.

“Mum would be proud,” she assures him. 

“Blood of the fish, she always said,” Bran replied, as he took his red clip from Gendry.

“Where’s your unit off to this afternoon?”

“Sports field. I heard Grey Worm and Loras saying something about basketball today.”

“Hmm,” Arya muses, “Don’t let them know how good you are before you kick all their arses.”

Bran smirks and rolls off, and Arya returns to the line with the girls for her turn. 

The test is barely a test. Arya got her red clip when she was ten years old. This year she’s the first back from the rock, Meera trailing behind her, and a surprise third, Shireen. 

“Do you swim much?” She asks Shireen, when they’re towelling off and getting their clips. 

“I grew up on the island of Dragonstone.”

Arya frowns, trying to remember. 

“That’s that island down south where all the rich people rent houses for summer holidays right?”

Shireen nods. 

“The place is packed with tourists in the summer, but there’s not a lot to do the rest of the year, so I swam. My father owns...owned, a lot of…”

Her voice trails off, and Arya knows not to push. She spies Gendry looking at them and changes the subject. 

“Where’s your unit headed after lunch and quiet time?”

“Riding, all of the girls are really excited.”

“That’s great! That’s what I’m teaching. Have you ever ridden before?”

Shireen looks a little spooked. 

“No, I mean, I’ve read a lot of books about horses, but I’ve never been on one.”

“That’s fine, we’ll teach you everything, it’s not something you can learn from a book..”

She can smell lunch from here, it’s apparently grilled cheese today, and she salivates. She doesn’t even stop to change before sitting beside Sansa, who’s polka dotted suit bears her own red clip. This is pretty much the only day that dress code isn’t enforced and swimsuits are allowed off the lake. After lunch Arya rushes back to the cabin to change out of her suit. 

Quiet time is used for napping and writing primarily, and so no one throws up in the water right after lunch, so Arya skips out to go right to the stables, where her and Ygritte feed and water the horses, tack them up and lead them out into the ring. 

Arya doesn’t even get the name of the unit counselor with Shireen’s group, though from the back of her head, she thinks she’s from Dorne. She understands, at least a little. If they stayed through activities, unit counselors would be on duty from sunup to sundown. This unit appears to be mostly girls between eight and ten. A good age for paying attention, but not always the most serious about the activity. When she had learned to ride all those years ago the rest of her unit had been mostly girls who were convinced horses were more like bicycles than real animals. Manure and hay and oats were disappointing to them, the manure neatly chasing off the prissier among them.

The first day with each unit always involves mostly covering the rules. 

“I know it’s hot,” Arya starts, “But you cannot ride in shorts and sandals. You will have blisters like you’ve never had before, and your feet will slip from the stirrups and you will fall from your saddle. Long pants and boots with smooth soles are required here.”

“And don’t even think about taking off your helmets,” Ygritte interjects, “Or I will kick you out so fast your head will spin and you will have to spend the rest of the summer in other activities...provided word hasn’t already gotten out.”

As the CIT, the two of them have Shireen step forward to demonstrate how to check the saddle and the reins, how to put one foot in the stirrup and swing your leg over and how to position your hands and feet. 

Shireen looks rather apprehensive through the whole deal, but she bucks up and does her best, and never utters a word of fear. She smiles and shouts encouragement when the two of them walk to help the other girls do the same.

When the period is done, and all the girls have mounted, dismounted and rode a single ring around the track at least, Shireen still looks ecstatic to be on the ground again. 

“I never knew horses were so big,” she’d admitted while the rest of the girls were gathering their things to go. 

“It’s not so scary once you get used to them. Horses aren’t the smartest of beasts, but they can sense if you are nervous or frightened.”

She pets Nan’s nose. She had put Shireen on her because she was one of the quietest and most sedate of the camp’s horses, and has never so much as stumbled with a rider on her back. She’s never travelled at faster than a slight trot either, but they can get to that when the time comes. 

Her and Ygritte discuss the group as they’re taking down the horses, brushing them before re-taking for the next unit.

“Last year was worse. The same unit was full of girls who were hooked on that cartoon with the friends and the rainbows. Real horses were a huge disappointment to them.”

The two brush in silence for a while longer. 

“I thought about writing Jon a letter last night,” Ygritte admits, “But every time I try, everything I write down sounds childish.”

Arya stays quiet. She understands. Jon was always her favorite brother, even though he’s only really her cousin. Ever since Dad had died and they’d all had to take on more responsibilities, all the things she used to go to him about seemed so small and insignificant. Fighting with Sansa, butting heads with Mum, things that used to drive her crazy suddenly made her feel like a baby to admit to.

And even though Ygritte was older than him, Arya gets how talking about bunks and campfires and patrols might seem childish to write about to someone who had just started basic training. 

The unit after Shireen’s is pretty much the same.

Afterwards, when the rest of the campers are doing cleaning and inspections, Arya returns to the cabin to grab her soap and towel and take a quick shower. Most of the campers shower either after breakfast, during quiet time or right after campfire, so right now the stalls are blissfully empty. The cold water from the faucet still shocks her. She smiles, remembering how the first summer here, when the cold water had offended her enough that she spent most of her session refusing to shower at all. That might have explained why the rest of the Brotherhood dunked her in the lake so often. 

It’s so hot in the Stormlands that by the time she’s thrown her jeans back on her cot and made her way to the mess hall in her shorts, she’s already completely dry. 

She grabs her bowl of spaghetti and takes her place next to Sansa. 

“Brienne says the zombie hunt this year is supposed to stay on land.”

Arya’s crestfallen. 

“Is she tired of us Starks dominating it with our superior swimming abilities or something?”

Sansa presses her lips tight. 

“Apparently they had a near drowning last summer. Pyp, one of the boys Jon used to hang around here. He had to be airlifted to the hospital in Storm’s End and didn’t come back the rest of summer. So the whole game’s land only now.”

Arya feels her stomach tighten. Something else on top of a beloved childhood memory. That feeling lingers through dessert and into campfire. 

Even though it’s been a long, long first day, Arya still finds herself wandering to the pier after changing into her pajamas. 

And Gendry’s right there beside her. 

They’re quiet for a bit, when Arya notices what looks like a band aid poking out from under his shirt. 

“What’s that?” she asks. 

He chuckles. 

“Nicotine patch.”

“You smoke?” she asks, aghast. They had both used to laugh at the way Polliver, the terrifying old maintenance man before Clegane had taken over, used to constantly have to duck out for a smoke every five minutes it seemed. 

“I worked in a restaurant for a year. Never work in one if you can help it- the only people who get breaks are smokers lighting up. So I started, and then I couldn’t stop, and I hate it, so these will make me stop before summer’s over.”

“Yea,” Arya whispers, flopping onto her back, “I suppose camp’s good for breaking yourself of bad habits like that.”

There’s a long pause before she asks. 

“So you’re not working there next year?” 

Gendry scoffs. 

“Gods no. Between last year and this gig, I have enough to pay my way while in continuing education courses. Can't do proper uni, not sure what I want to study anyway. I thought about taking up a trade apprenticeship, but Davos warned me that they can take a toll on your body really young.”

“Would he know?” Arya asks, wanting more information about his foster father.

“He worked at the docks since he was a boy, and only recently started managing his own crew. He was in the Navy before that, knows boats better than anyone I've met.”

Gendry flops back beside her and swallows hard. 

“I can’t imagine being in an office all day, but I don’t want to be one of those blue collar workers who looks down on education either.”

Arya smiles, remembering his stories about his mother studying over supper every night when she was trying to go back to school. How she would have for sure, if she hadn’t gotten sick. 

“You could study wildlife biology or environmental science, something that would involve spending all day studying things in forest or marshes or something. That’s what Meera wants to do. She can’t afford to go to university yet, so she joined the Conservation Corps, she’s going to spend the next two years building and maintaining trails way back in the sticks, she wants to join the park service eventually.”

Gendry furrows his brow in confusion. 

“Aren’t they the one with the motto ‘hard work, low pay, miserable conditions and more’?”

“Yup, she’s super excited.”

They both explode into laughter. 

Gendry leans on one elbow to look at her. 

“I don’t know about that, but it’s a thought at least.”

They quiet again, gazing at each other in a way that makes Arya’s heart race again. He reaches out to touch her face and her heart nearly stops. 

“Your earrings- I don’t remember, did you have those before?”

“Oh-” she reaches up to touch the studs, small silver wolf heads with tiny red rhinestones for eyes, “-no actually, my mum took me to get my ears pierced when I turned thirteen, later the last year you saw me.”

Her stomach sinks. She hadn’t wanted pierced ears, she had long proclaimed they were too girly, though mostly she was afraid of the pain. She had fought Mum so hard at first, insisting that they were stupid and she didn’t want them, only to finally relent when she saw how happy it made her mother. It was so soon after Dad had died, and there were far too few things, far too far in between that made Mum smile. 

“I used to have to take them out at every gymnastics meet, every football game, every swim meet...but Mum told me I looked beautiful wearing them and I wanted so bad for her just to be proud of me.”

She reaches up and twists the posts in their holes. 

“I leave them in all the time now, and sometimes I actually forget about them.”

Gendry’s face turns confused. 

“You don’t swim or play anymore?”

“Seven hells, of course not!”

She chuckles. 

“I left gymnastics after there was a scandal at our gym with one of the coaches. The facility just reopened, I’m planning to work there after school helping with the tumbling classes during the year. I left the football team after year 4, but Robb and Jon and I will still pick up a game at the park when we’re all together. And swimming-”

She swallows roughly. 

“Bran swims at the Seven Center multiple times a week on his doctor’s orders- we both love it, so I take him. But I haven’t competed in over a year, not since before-”

She swallows again, the tears pricking at her eyes. Swimming always made her think of Mum. She remembers her face when she placed at her first meet, remembers her showing her all of her medals from her own champion years. She remembers that no matter how busy she was with church events or work fundraisers, she made every single event Arya competed in. 

“I miss it,” she says, covering her face.

Gendry seems to have realized she’s become upset, but when he reaches out to hug her, Arya can’t handle it. She pulls away and stands. 

“Goodnight. Thank you, Gendry.”

And she leaves him alone on the pier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, "Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions, and more!" is the motto of the California Conservation Corps. [Seriously](https://ccc.ca.gov/)


	3. Chapter 3

First session revs up. 

Arya’s schedule gives her Thursdays and Saturdays off. On Thursdays Ygritte handles the stables by herself, and there are no riding lessons given on Saturdays. 

The first Thursday, Arya spends the morning dropping her clothes off at the camp laundry, and then putting them away when they’re done. Since half her clothes are missing their name labels, she finds it easier just to wait around until they’re done rather than risking someone else getting her knickers. 

After lunch, Arya decides to take a step into the drama barn and see what Sansa’s up to this summer. 

The drama barn is actually a barn, though there are no stalls and no animals. A raised stage takes up most of the space, the lights and prop and costume storage up in the haylofts. When they put on the end of session show, the doors are opened and the audience sits outside under the stars. 

Sansa had told her the second night at camp that the first session they were putting on Alice in Wonderland, the second the Wizard of Oz and lastly Peter Pan. Arya always liked watching the shows, and not just because the mass overrepresentation of girls in the drama program always led to some interesting cross-casting. 

Right now, Sansa and Margaery are passing around scripts to this group of campers. Most of the campers are young enough they're basically yelling their lines, making the wit sound utterly goofy. The CIT is a blonde girl, who at closer inspection, Arya realizes is Joffrey’s sister Myrcella.

Arya asks about her after the campers start to disperse. 

“Bran ran into her a few days ago,” Sansa admits. 

“Did she say anything about…” Arya raises an eyebrow, hoping that says enough. 

Sansa’s expression turns sour.

“Her and Tommen live with their uncle now. Joffrey’s going to trial in a few months because right after he turned eighteen he got drunk and plowed his car into a sidewalk, killing two people. Their mother went on a series of very public interviews about how it wasn’t his fault, but only revealed to the rest of the world how bad her drinking problem is…”

Arya’s gaze remains steady. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to say I told you so.”

Sansa sniffs and shakes her head. 

“You don’t have to, I should have known. I should have seen, even his own brother and sister didn’t like him.”

Arya pulls herself onto a crate of masks and looks Sansa in the eye. 

“And at least your taste has improved since then.”

Sansa hadn’t had time to date much in the last few years, but the ones Arya had met seemed decent enough. Right now, Sansa’s gaze is aimed across the barn to where Margaery is checking over the Alice in Wonderland costumes. They’re mostly over-large foam headed animal costumes, suitable for children of many sizes, but there are a few that look more like typical clothing. She holds up the Queen of Hearts costume, a long filmy red thing.

“Is that your costume?”

Sansa nods, smiling, eyes still trailed on Margaery. 

“I have to, I’m the only one tall enough to wear it. Sometimes if we’re unlucky it ends up being a boy“

Her eyes stay, and Arya’s follow. Margaery is lovely, golden chestnut curls, a huge red smile, the kind of body that was the envy of other girls. 

Including Sansa, it seemed. 

Arya’s voice softens. 

“Are you still not comfortable with it?”

Sansa ducks her head. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Coming out to people outside the family.”

Sansa’s eyes fall closed. Arya had been the first person she had told when she had come to the realization that she was bisexual. It was still one of Arya’s proudest moments, that her sister trusted her that much. The other siblings had been similarly easy, but Sansa had been so frightened to tell their Mum, certain that with her old-fashioned ways, she would disapprove. 

She’d never had the chance to find out. 

Figuring this was as good a time as any to ask her, Arya wonders aloud. 

“How did you first know anyway?”

Sansa gives her a look that’s half withering. Arya laughs, maybe it was a stupid question. 

“How did you know you were straight?”

Arya shrugs, kicking her feet, the crate she’s sitting on is large enough that they dangle. 

“I don’t know. Contrary to popular opinion, I’ve always liked boys. I’ve never fawned or made a fool of myself around them because I never thought they deserved that much extra thought. I still remember Mum fretting, wondering when I would start doing my hair and going out all the time like I was supposed to.“

Arya’s stomach drops again. She’d never told Sansa why Mum’s opinions on that specific topic was such a sore spot for her. 

Sansa smiles. 

“I’m not sure even Mum would know what to make of you spending so much time with the lifeguard here.”

Arya feels her neck turn pink. Sansa nods knowingly. 

“Even back then I knew. You were always surrounded by little boys, but you treated him different than you treated them.”

“That’s different,” she insists, “I do like Gendry, but he’s my friend first. We’ve been friends for a long time...and a lot has happened since we’ve seen each other last time.”

Sansa nods. 

“A lot has happened. I guess that’s one of the good things about camp. Gives you time to relax and reflect, remember what’s actually important.”

Arya had never thought about it like that, but it was the truth. Most children at camp didn’t know anyone else, they came without siblings or family friends, unlike Arya who always had a few people she knew here. They could be whoever they wanted to be for the summer. 

Morning activities are over after that, so Arya and Sansa walk to the mess hall for lunch. 

Lunch also means mail call, and Sansa squeals when they’ve got a letter from Robb, tearing it open before Arya can read a single word, 

“He says work is going fine, though they’re still undoing so much of the mess Robert left us in,” Sansa starts, “He says the dogs are doing well too.”

Arya grins. Several years before, one of their father’s friends had a litter of puppies, one for each of Arya and her siblings, and Jon as well to have one. The enormous fluffy malamute mixes had run free on the Stark’s, frolicking in the snow come each winter. Lady had died early, and Nymeria had run away, but Arya still loved watching them all the others run about.

“He says Ghost misses Jon dearly, and lets us know he hasn’t heard from him either.”

Sansa bites her lip at the next lines. 

“He also says he feels a million years old going into work every day...and tells us he wants to hear every single detail so he can pretend he got to come here this summer too.”

Arya frowns at this. It’s not fair that Robb had to grow up so fast just because he was the oldest, and the only one who could be legally responsible for the rest of them. She didn’t think her and Sansa were too much stress on him, but between Bran’s medical appointments and therapy and keeping Rickon in school and from actually running wild, she understands how it could wear him down. 

Speaking of Rickon, after lunch is finished, Brienne approaches Arya. 

“Can you come with me for a few minutes? It’s nothing serious, I was just hoping for your assistance.”

She leads Arya away, and as soon as they turn up the hill, she realizes they're going towards the infirmary. Gods know she spent enough time there as a camper, covered in bumps and bruises. 

“Rickon got into a fight with another boy on the sports field when his cabin and one of the girls cabin’s were playing kickball. Rather than immediately punish the both of them for fighting, I was hoping you could get the story out of your brother before I make my decision.”

Arya sighs deeply. This is a role she often plays at home. 

When she enters, she expects far worse than what she sees. Rickon’s hair is a mess and he has a splint on one wrist and a couple of scrapes on one cheek.

“How’s the other one look?” Arya asks, sitting down beside him.

Rickon’s silent. It’s a strange look on him. From faraway an unfamiliar person might even expect an angelic child with his red curls. His siblings knew better, and had resisted for years letting him off easy just because, at thirteen, he was the youngest of them. 

“We were just talking about the zombie game at the end of session. I was telling how you all always talked about how they picked one person to be the zombie and try and infect the others. One of them started laughing and saying there wouldn’t even be a contest being that we had a real zombie here already.”

Arya must look confused, so he continues. 

“Couple of the guys have been making fun of the other cabin’s CIT since we got here. The girl with the scarred face?”

Arya’s heart sinks. 

“So you punched him?”

Rickon nods, his head still downcast. Arya sighs. 

“Rickon,” she starts, “I’m not angry at you for defending someone being teased...but you can’t just punch people. Tell a counselor, someone who has actual power to punish that person who’s being mean.”

She ruffles his curls. 

“But I will tell Brienne what happened and that both of you need be put on KP for the rest of session, but that she should keep an open ear out for anyone else bullying Shireen.”

Rickon nods, knowing that’s fair. And Arya pats his hair again. A week’s worth of emptying trash and doing dishes is worth it for standing up to a bully.

Saturdays are a different sort of day off. There are fewer cabin activities on weekends. Instead there are campfire breakfasts, beach parties, nature hikes and camp-wide tournaments. Tomorrow, Arya and Ygritte are set to be leading a trail ride through part of Mistwood, so Arya plans to spend her day off relaxing as much as possible.

Which is why she has to be convinced when Gendry tries to convince her to go on a short hike. 

“I already had Hot Pie do us up a couple of sack lunches. I found something last year that I wanted to show you!”

And in the end, a hike is hardly the worst way to spend a free day.

Arya loves the forest, the places where the trees and wild things rule. There are cedars and hemlocks and tall, tall redwoods. 

They’ve only been on the trail maybe twenty minutes when Arya spots a weirwood. 

“I didn’t know these grow this far south!” she exclaims, examining the blood red sap dripping from it’s ancient face. She’s never spoken too much of her affinity for her father’s faith, the faith of her home in the north.

“There’s not a lot of them, but there are some,” Gendry tells her, “One year after you left, the counselor sent us on a scavenger hunt to find as many of them as we could when he took us on a nature hike.”

Further into the woods, the morning fog still lingers, telling Arya they must be closer to the coast than she had thought. 

Eventually, they reach the edge of a gorge, before a sheer drop into a stream below. The ground smooths out into rock. 

“What am I looking for?”

Gendry shushes her, sitting cross-legged on the ground pointing to a spot across the gorge where the ground slopes down into rock along the edge of the creek. Arya sits beside him, somewhat reluctantly.

They’ve been sitting for maybe half an hour, They’ve both opened Hot Pie’s lunches, peanut butter and jelly with apples, and munch on them quietly. 

It’s close to noon when there’s movement below in the rock. The whole of Mistwood is full of caves, though counselors have never let the campers explore as much as they would have liked, citing the potential for there to be wild animals living in the caves. 

“Oh!” Arya exclaims when the movement is revealed to be a wolf, huge and dark gray, leaving the cave to drink from the stream, blinking up at the sky with his huge blue eyes. 

“I didn’t know wolves lived in the Stormlands, or anywhere in the south, for that matter” she says.

“There have been rumours of wolves in the woods here for generations. There’s a story about a northern girl who came here in the old days to marry a lover, and not only survived, but, thrived despite that old bit of advice that northerners don’t do well south of the Neck,”

Arya smiles and snorts. Advice like that always sounded ridiculously old fashioned to her, not to mention that so much of the Neck had been drained years ago for development, aside from some bits protected by the parks and forest services. Without it, defining the line between north and south was much more difficult.

“They called her the Wolf Queen, and it seems like that’s where they assumed the stories came from, until about five years ago, some wildlife biology guys working out here found this pack.”

They sit and watch the wolf until he returns to his den. Wolves come out to hunt at dusk usually, this is like the middle of the night for her. Arya finishes up her sandwich, licks her fingers and rolls the trash up to tuck in her pocket. She’s spread her hoodie on the ground and is laying on her stomach, gazing across the gorge.

The day is pleasant, not too hot, and with no one else around, Arya finds herself feeling comfortable, maybe a bit too much. Gendry’s sitting with his back against a tree, and she crooks her head over her shoulder looking at him. 

Softly, her lips open and her words tumble out. 

“Last year, right before I turned sixteen, Mum and Bran were in an accident. A drunk driver went over the median and hit the car head on.”

Her words slow, and she ducks her head back against the rock, so she can’t see Gendry’s face.

“Bran was thrown from the wreckage, he collided against a metal railing on the shoulder. Fractured his spine. Pretty low down, the doctors kept saying he was really lucky, and how much worse it could have been. Great joy that was to a boy who had just found out he would probably never walk again…”

Arya cringes, remembering the conversations with the doctors and physical therapists, how they had described that with therapy, Bran would regain independent control of almost all of his bodily functions and other ADLs. There were all sorts of things in that conversation she hadn’t wanted to ever have to consider about her little brother, but now had to, they all had to now…

“Mum was dead on the scene.”

Arya feels tears prick at her eyes, and she wipes them away. She’s not looking at Gendry, doesn’t have to. She can imagine his face contorting. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says.

Arya feels warmth beside her, and turns her head enough to see Gendry stretched on the rock beside her, face up.

“How are- are you- are you all still living at home?”

Arya’s stomach flips when she realizes what he’s talking about. 

“Robb had already turned eighteen. He was already interning at Dad’s company, so he was able to petition to become our legal guardian.”

Arya cringes again, thinking of the mess Robb and Mum said that Robert Baratheon left the company in after Dad’s death. 

“Jon joined the air force as soon as he turned of age so we would get familial benefits from it.”

Gendry lays on his back, his breathing even, as he thinks on her words. 

“I can remember everything from when my mum died,” he admits, “I was eight. I remember walking home from playing football at the park after school and there were people outside the flat, and a policeman told me to gather my things in a bin bag and come with him.”

Arya winces. She remembers Gendry telling her about the bin bags when they were younger, how it was all he had to move his clothes and school things and toys from place to place. 

“It wasn’t until even three months later that I even learned what happened. That her neighbor had seen her collapse while watering the yard and called the ambulance. She’d died of a brain aneurysm, no one could have done anything.”

Arya rolls on one side to watch his face. The sun shines off his still fairly pale face.

“Do you-” she starts off, stuttering, “Do you constantly remember the last thing you said to her?”

Gendry nods. 

“That morning before school, I complained we were out of my favorite cereal. Then I left for the bus.”

It’s petty, she thinks, a petty and childish set of last words. She still thinks hers were far worse. 

“You turned eighteen in May,” she changes the subject, “Is your current foster dad kicking you out?”

Gendry smiles, genuinely. 

“No. Mr. Davos was the one who impressed on me how bad the outcomes often are for kids who just age out of foster care instead of being adopted. He hounds me all the time, makes sure I stay in school. He's the one who convinced me to keep enrolling in CE courses even after I'd left secondary school and didn't think I'd go to uni. No one ever really did that before.”

Arya thinks. She knows a lot of the charitable work Mum had organized with the church and for PR events at the company had involved foster children. She’d never gotten involved, maybe she should have. 

“He’s been wonderful to me...these three years were more than I had ever thought I would get as a kid. And I can’t imagine how those three years have been for Shireen…”

His voice trails off, and Arya thinks it’s a good enough time to bring it up. 

“Rickon got into a fight the other day, apparently some of the kids have started telling Shireen she has to play the camp zombie.”

Gendry’s jaw sets. It is remarkable, Arya thinks, that his anger is so much quieter than it used to be. 

“She told me last night that some of the girls have taken to calling her the Bitch.”

Arya’s shocked.

“Because-”

“Because her burns make her look like the Hound.”

Arya’s stomach twists again. 

“I still can’t believe he let that name catch on.”

Her voice is quieter when she continues. 

“They are burns then? I wasn’t sure.”

Gendry inhales roughly. 

“Yes, they are burns. What happened to her, her story...it’s very different than mine, but it’s worse. I won’t tell you the rest of the story, I-”

His gaze moves from her face to his feet. 

“It’s not my story to tell. If she’s with us one of these days, and tells me it’s okay, I can tell you, but not otherwise.”

Arya nods in agreement. The noontime sun has begun to wane, and the afternoon breeze begins to drift in from the sea of Dorne and makes the air more comfortable. 

She turns her head over her shoulder again, and smiles. 

“Thank you for showing me the wolves...It’s getting a little late though,” she says, “We should be getting back to camp.”

Gendry nods, pulling himself into a sitting position before standing. He offers Arya his hand to pull her to her own feet. 

They hold hands the entire hike back to camp. Gendry runs his thumb along the inside of Arya’s wrist, and she hopes he can’t feel how much her heart is thrumming.


	4. Chapter 4

The three week long sessions at Camp Durrandon end with a day of no scheduled cabin activities.

The last full day brings first the camp wide games. Session three played capture the flag, session two hide and seek, and the first session of the summer always played zombie tag.

Zombie tag was the best one of course.

The zombie was selected. Brienne had approached Arya after dinner one night to see if she was interested. She beamed. 

In the morning, right after breakfast she would go down to the drama barn where Sansa and the other drama leaders would do her up in her zombie makeup. 

In the morning, after breakfast, all campers would be led to the flagpole. There, they would sit under a canopy and watch the original Night of the Living Dead and then Brienne would explain the rules. 

While this was going on, Arya would sneak off to the drama barn, where Sansa and the other drama counselors would give her a suitable makeover. 

“Want to come?” she asks Shireen at breakfast, “Every time Sansa does makeup on me she gets into a serious zone and I could use someone to talk to while she stares and hums and fusses.”

“Sure,” Shireen says, “I don’t like horror movies anyway.”

The drama barn has a tote full of stage makeup, in mostly half full tubs and tubes that are partially dry. Supplementing this is Sansa’s own carefully curated and packed stash from home. 

“I can’t believe you brought all your makeup to camp,”

Sansa shushes her and goes to work. Off to the side, Shireen idly pokes around in the box by Sansa’s side. She pulls out a tube of pink gloss and applies some on her lips, glancing in the mirror while Arya is getting herself turned deadly pale. 

“That looks nice on you,” Arya says, resisting the urge to sneeze at the smell of the powder Sansa’s using.

Shireen looks dubious and Arya chuckles. 

“Just because I hate wearing makeup doesn’t mean I don’t think it can look nice on other people.”

Shireen shrugs, and puts the tube back. 

“I’ve never worn it much. My mother would never allow it, and after going into care, it seemed silly to spend money on it.”

Sansa’s working on the gelatin-skin base for her head wound, so Arya starts telling Shireen the zombie tag rules. 

“It’s the whole camp against me at first. I sneak around with a big bottle of red paint- tempera of course, jumping in the lake would wash it off- and if I catch you and spray you with it, you’re a zombie too. You report to the flagpole, get your own bottle of paint, and you start chasing the others too. Whoever we catch last, or who doesn’t get caught, wins.”

“Sounds fun I guess.”

“Arya was camp-wide champion two summers in a row,” Sansa says, “and back then the zombies could chase you into the lake.”

“That was how I won so often,” Arya admits with a grin while Sansa affixes the wound to her head with the spirit gum, “I would swim out to the rock in the middle and hide. No one else would swim well enough to catch me. Mum used to always say the gods had given me a blessing like in one of those old stories.”

Arya stills for a moment. It’s a strange thing to say so suddenly. 

Shireen looks confused, and her next comments save them from any awkwardness, at least on the topic of Mrs Stark. 

“I hate to ask this, but what gods are those?”

Arya blinks. 

“What gods?” Sansa interrupts, preparing the stage blood to apply to the fake wound. “The Seven! Mother, Father, Warrior, Smith, Maiden, Crone, Stranger? This camp is run by the church of the seven!”

Arya glares at Sansa. 

“You’re not from the north, “ she starts softly, trying not to let Shireen get defensive, “So I doubt you believe in the Old Gods. Were you just not raised religious?”

Shireen’s not looking at either of them, and her hands are squeezing her arms tightly just above the elbow.

“Have either of you ever heard of the Lord of Light?”

Sansa shakes her head, but Arya bites her lip. 

“Isn’t that something some people in Essos believe in?”

Shireen squeezes her arms tighter, leaving little red marks in her skin.

“Mostly in Essos, but there are some in Westeros too. My mother always was a follower, and when I was little she converted my father too. It was all I ever knew, I don’t know anything about other religions. Eventually we got more and more involved with the church. Most of Dragonstone did. I’ve met a ton of Red priests and priestesses- one of them was Gendry’s foster mother for a year- but then later-”

Her voice is getting thin and high pitched. Despite Arya’s curiosity (especially at the mention of one of Gendry’s other foster parents) she cuts her off. 

“It’s okay,” she insists, “You don’t have to tell us everything. We did only meet three weeks ago.”

Shireen calms back down, and Sansa finishes up her work. Arya stands, and prepares to go, obtain her paint bottles, and pick her perch. 

Underneath a table at the mess hall is always a good possibility, but then fewer people might pass her. On a whim, she chooses behind the third boys cabin. 

Brienne usually has everyone in a line and take off in slightly different directions, but often they stray towards the center of camp. And right on time, Arya hears two girls, maybe ten years old, walk out in front of the cabin. 

She’s spent years perfecting her zombie groan. One of the girls turns and actually screams when she sees her, but she does nothing to stop the spray of paint. 

“You are both part of my horde now,” Arya groans, “Return to the flagpole and obtain your tools.”

They grumble but follow her directions. 

The campers have no weapons, no defense against her beside their speed and cleverness. 

She catches Rickon surprisingly fast. He’s fast, but she knows his movements. She smears big handprints of paint along his front and back just to make a point. 

Her most difficult catch is Lyanna, the youngest Mormont, the only one who’s still a camper. The girl is fast, and quiet, and good at hiding. But eventually Arya catches her by being quiet as a mouse and then running full speed at her directly from her side. 

Her game is backgrounded with screeches and squeals as other newly minted zombies find their own victims.

After maybe an hour’s play, Arya hears the alarm Brienne sounds that announces they have their sole survivor. Every time a camper returned to the flagpole, their counselor would check off their name until only one was left. She counts off the ones she knows, trying to figure out who the winner is. 

Sitting in the chair under the flagpole when Arya reaches the front, is pale, tiny, twelve year old Tommen Baratheon. 

“I went to the mess hall,” he says, when Arya approaches him to give him a pair of high fives, “And I curled up under the breakfast bar. You didn’t even come past there, and no one else did either!”

Arya grins. Most obvious hiding places are now blocked off, the bathrooms, the cabins and the lake, but somehow the ones who hide always end up winning. One year, she remembers, one camper tried to run into the Mistwood, so now there’s a line of CITs guarding it.

Once her role is over, Arya heads on out to the lake. Gendry’s in the lifeguard stand even though there are no cabins swimming at this time, with everyone at lunch. 

She winks over her shoulder at him before diving into the lake. She swims a bit, splashing herself with water to wash off all of the remaining paint. She could have gone and taken a regular shower, but this feels better during the hot weather. 

Eventually, she climbs from the lake by where he sits, and shakes herself off. Gendry grins at her. 

“Turn around?” he says, and she does. 

“Paint free,” he declares her. His eyes linger on her, and Arya feels her cheeks become a bit warm, though she’s not wearing anything scandalous- even her bathing suit is skimpier than her t-shirt and shorts, and she’s even wearing a bra. 

Gendry’s head is still cocked, maybe he just likes the way her clothes stick to her skin. 

She offers him her crooked arm. 

“Walk with me to lunch? We’re late but there still should be peanut butter at least.”

He takes her arm and her heart leaps.

Their linked arms earn Arya a wink from Ygritte and a knowing look from Meera when they sit at the table. Arya’s wet shorts squelch when she sits, but she’s mostly dry by the time she inhales her sandwich.

Sansa’s not at lunch because the afternoon means watching the drama barn’s first session show. Once trays are cleared and the unit counselors begin herding everyone towards the theater, Arya asks Gendry again. 

“Sit with me during the show? We get the good seats in the back.”

The seats in the back are the best ones, as the ground before the barn starts slopes upward, so the back seats under the canopy can see over the heads of the campers in front. 

Arya has seen so many productions of Alice in Wonderland over the years that she can follow almost without paying attention. 

When the Queen of Hearts appears, Sansa in her heart-spangled dress over her camp shirt, she feels Gendry watching her. 

“You get along with your sister so much better than you used to. Seems like we used to spend half of our summers short-sheeting her bed.”

“I know,” she admits, “We’ve always been so different, but when things started to happen...most of the things that divided us stopped seeming important. And it was so much easier to have each other’s backs.”

Sansa’s going a great job dominating the scene, bossy and loud. Twelve year old Arya had thought that was who she was, but she’d learned better. 

When the show is finished, Arya squeezes his hand. 

Dinner is quick, spaghetti tonight. Arya wipes the last bit of sauce from her face and asks.

“Do you have to go to the dance tonight?’

Gendry snorts. 

“Thank Gods no. As a lifeguard, I am spared that particular indignity.”

He’d always hated the end of session dances, having been tall and broad even as a preteen, and feeling like a sore thumb on a dance floor. Arya’s a little disappointed, but doesn’t show it. 

“I have to give a token appearance, I told Missandei I’d help her set up the new music system. Maybe I’ll find you after?”

And with another over-the-shoulder grin, Arya takes off to change. 

When she leaves the cabin to go up to the circle for the dance, she’s in her cleanest pair of jeans and a loose embroidered top. 

The ground around the campfire has been cleared of it’s benches and chairs, and another set of canopies has gone up, hung with battery-operated paper lanterns. In the center, where the fire would usually be, Missandei has the table with the music set up. It had taken years, but the camp had finally upgraded from a CD boombox to a mp3 dock, but she wasn’t sure how to get it to work. 

It ends up just being a matter of how to navigate the menu and turn on the shuffle mode, which Arya figures out easily enough, and Missandei thanks her. 

“Are you still in uni?” Arya asks her. 

She nods. 

“Second year, I got into the international relations program.”

“Still want to be a diplomat?”

Missandei nods. 

“I do like Westeros, but I miss Essos sometimes, and there was so much of it I never got to see at all.”

Arya nods, and once she gets the music going and the kids begin to shuffle in, takes her spot next to the punch bowl.

Arya didn’t particularly like dances. She liked dancing just fine, but something about making it into an event just turned it into a big mess of hormones and awkwardness with the added fun of having attention on you. 

Camp dances have some advantages over school ones at least- no one knows you here, so you can be whoever you want. School dances are worse, Arya can’t remember the last time she even went to a school dance…

No, that’s a lie. She can remember perfectly. 

Once the dance starts, she watches over the dancefloor, where most of the campers are giggling and keeping to their own sides, and she decides it’s a good enough time to leave. 

She’s walking past the waterfront to return to the cabin, when she notices a figure at the end of the pier. 

“Not a fan of dances, I imagine?” she asks Bran as she sits on the end of the dock beside him. 

“I didn’t even like going to dances before,” he says, gesturing at his wheelchair, “Now I have an excuse besides ‘I hate them’.”

They sit quietly for a while before Arya remembers. 

“Oh! I forgot to tell you. Ygritte and I were clearing out the hayloft the other day, and we found the adaptive saddle. The next time your cabin comes and rides you get to do something besides sit and watch.”

Bran turns away from her. 

“I can’t mount by myself though,” he starts, thinking, “And I’m taller than you now, I don’t think you and Ygritte could get me on very easily.”

Arya’s heart sinks. 

“We could try-”

“It’s okay, Arya,” Bran tells her, smiling, “I’m happy you tried so hard for me, but I don’t want to do the whole ‘you can do anything you want to’ schtick here at camp, I just want to have fun.”

Arya looks at her little brother, really looks at him. It hasn’t even been a year, but it seems like he’s become so wise in some ways. 

“Are you?” Arya asks him, “Having fun? Not just here, but are you finally having fun again at home?”

Bran snorts. 

“I do more sports now than I ever did before, even at home. I can get out of pretty much any activity I don’t feel like by saying I feel like I need to go to the nurse and I get to use the shower with the removable handle and pretty much everyone lets me go first. Being here is the best I’ve felt since the doctor told me I didn’t have to shove a tube up my dick six times a day anymore.”

Arya punches him. 

“Gross dude, go ahead and go to bed if you’re going to be like that.”

“Starting to question whether I should even try and stick myself in the middle of this conversation.”

Arya turns her head and hears Bran say, “Hi Gendry.” He sits down on her other side. 

“Ignore him,” Arya insists, “He likes to get super graphic so people will stop talking to him.”

“You didn’t go to the dance?” Bran asks, ignoring his sister. 

“No. Tom went though, and Lem’s snoring like a jackhammer, so I figure I’d come on and sit for a while before I try to sleep.”

Bran’s eyes slide between the two of them. 

“I didn’t come out and sit in the middle of a make out spot did I?”

Arya punches him in the arm again, her cheeks only turning a little red.

“Bran, everyone knows the make out spot is that tree behind the stables.”

Bran rolls his eyes, but turns his wheels and heads back 

“Not very many people go out back there anymore,” Gendry tells her once he’s gone. 

Arya’s eyebrows fly up. 

“No one goes to the kissing tree anymore?”

Gendry grins. 

“Well I suppose it loses its appeal once you realize everyone knows about it and might well butt in on you while you’re fooling around.”

Arya frowns.

“Where do you go now?”

“Last summer sneaking back to the campfire circle was popular, but I doubt anyone will do that tonight with the dance still going. “

He pauses, and then stands. He extends Arya his hand, and she takes it. 

“Follow me.”

The lifeguards cabin is out of line of the other cabins, because it’s supposed to still be within eyesight of the lake. Behind it, is the equipment shed, which is wide enough that there is a small patch of grass beside it, which cannot be easily seen from any of the usual paths. 

Arya’s heart is thudding in her chest. They haven’t really talked about anything, but the very conversation is so thick with intention, and expectation. 

When they reach the spot, Gendry turns and looks at her, almost shyly. Arya presses her back against the shed, head tilted up, smiling, butterflies in her stomach. 

“Well then?” she says, smiling. She’s trying to hold herself openly while enjoying the butterflies. 

It doesn’t take long, and then Gendry’s hands are on her shoulders and his lips are on hers. It’s sweeter than the first one, her eyes fall closed and she lets the warmth wash over her. When he pulls back slightly, she giggles against his lips. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” he asks. Arya nods, before her stomach catches. 

“Is this one of those secrets I’ll have to trade you for?”

Gendry shakes his head. 

“Not unless you want to.”

“Then you can tell me whatever you like.”

He pulls away, and Arya resists the urge to whimper. He sits on the little patch of grass and after a moment, she sits beside him. 

“Your first kiss was mine too.”

Arya blinks. That wasn’t what she was expecting. 

“Really? Gods, you seemed so much older than me then.”

Gendry laughs ruefully. 

“Being a foster kid, I moved so much I barely had time to make friends, much less spending any effort trying to impress girls. Then, when I moved in with Mr. Davos and his wife, I spent so much time keeping my marks up in school and working to save money that it didn’t leave much time to find a girlfriend. I’ve dated a bit, and i’ve kissed a handful of other girls since then, but I’ve never been serious about anyone.”

A shadow passes over his eyes, and Arya hates that they both have these that come over them. 

“It was hard enough getting past what happened with…” he trails off. 

Arya coughs and interrupts him. She lays back on the grass, head propped up on her arm. 

“Is this your way of admitting that you’re a virgin?”

Gendry makes a face at her. 

“I’m barely eighteen, it’s not like I’m forty, is it really that shocking?”

“Jon’s been going out with Ygritte since he was fourteen, and Robb always had a girl on his arm. But I’m pretty much in the same place you are. I’ve gone out a bit, but never met anyone I really liked.”

She sits back up, ignoring the push of her own shadow passing behind her eyes. It’s too nice of a night for this. She wraps her arms around his shoulders. 

“But I don’t want to talk about anyone else.”

This next kiss is less sweet, more exploratory. After a moment, Arya runs her tongue along Gendry’s bottom lip, and his lips open to let her in eagerly. 

The moon that night is full, hanging over them. All in all, Arya considers this a triumphant end to the first session.


	5. Chapter 5

Second session is on. 

Second session is often sold as being for “adventure campers”, which works out to most of the campers being a bit older. Arya and Ygritte end up letting some of the riders at the stable canter and gallop instead of just trot, and there are trail rides into the forest every single Sunday. Ygritte’s even been mumbling about getting out the jumps.

The first weekend of session, Shireen’s new cabin goes on the ride with them. Arya is pleased, because Ygritte has been acting very withdrawn in the past few days, and she can’t figure out why. 

“It’s the strangest thing,” Arya tells Shireen, as they bring up the rear of the group while Ygritte leads, pointing out interesting things along the path. “She never shuts up normally, she’s got an even bigger mouth than I do.”

“You’ve known each other a while?”

Arya nods, patting her roan mare on the rump so she would keep up. 

“She started going out with my cousin Jon- sort of- five years ago. The next year was the summer my dad died. We hadn’t thought they were that serious, I mean, it was a summer camp romance. But after we left early, at the end of session she hopped off the bus at White Harbour and hitched a ride to Winterfell to come and check on all of us before she took the train north. She’s been a fixture ever since, holidays and summers both, even the ones she didn’t come here.”

She doesn’t mention the absolute minefield the grounds of Winterfell had become to wander if Ygritte was around. It had just been annoying at first, but about two years ago, when her and Jon had first begun having sex, it had become downright hazardous. Every Stark child had gotten an eyeful at some point, and some things just could not be unseen.

“I’m sort of jealous,” Shireen admits, “Getting to see the same people here every year. It makes me sad I started coming so late.”

Arya shrugs. She missed out on four years, but coming back to camp still felt like slipping on her favorite pair of pajamas.

“If you want to start making some of those great camp memories,” Arya starts off, “You should start hanging out at the docks after campfire, since that seems to be where we have all our heartfelt talks lately.”

The first night of second session, instead of Bran, the dock ended up being taken by Sansa, who was having a late night breakdown over what Mother would have thought for her plans for her first year out of school. 

Arya was happy enough to help her sister out, but she was rather glad that Gendry and she had found an alternative make out spot. 

Shireen doesn’t get a chance to respond when they have to all stop, because one of the ten year old campers slips from her saddle and tumbles upon the ground. She’s more scared than hurt, but Arya gets to show off for the others why they always carry the first aid kit.

It’s the fifth day of second session when the worst sound Arya can imagine at camp comes over the loudspeaker. 

The siren, wavering in and out, announcing a lost bather drill. 

Arya remembers the procedure no problem. All campers, CITs and uncertified staff file to the mess hall to be counted. 

And all red clipped staff head to the lake, strip to their underwear, and dive in. They suck in breaths and dive down as deep as they can, sweeping their hands against the bottom, before rising again. Then they repeat, until the all clear is blown. 

Arya knows what they’re doing. They’re looking for a body. After hearing about Pyp last summer, she imagines Brienne and Beric must be making sure all their staff know exactly what needs to be done in an emergency. 

And aside from that potential horror, there’s always the lingering embarrassment when everyone emerges from the water, soaking wet, shivering and half dressed. 

As the lifeguard on duty, Gendry blows his whistle to declare the search over. He also, thankfully, has a pile of towels by his stand to pass out so they can dry off. 

Arya rushes forward to grab one for Sansa, who’s trying to cover herself. Arya smothers a laugh, Sansa’s always been more modest than her, she used to be uncomfortable even wearing a bikini in public. 

Sansa smiles in gratitude when she’s able to cover herself as she dries off. She doesn’t have to fear attention, because all the hooting at pointing this time is off to the left side of the group. The subject of the topic is Margaery Tyrell, who appears to have forgotten since orientations that these were a possibility on any day at all, and is wearing nothing more than a few scraps of purple lace. 

To her credit, Margaery pays the hollars no mind as she redresses, even as her bending over to pick up her jeans gives the rest of the lakeside crowd a prime view of her entire bum.

Even Sansa can’t seem to take her eyes off her, her nose and cheeks lit up red. Arya doesn’t even get a chance to mock her lusty gaze, when she admits,

“I wish I had that kind of confidence.”

Arya rolls her eyes, but is distracted by Ygritte coming up to the group, already re-dressed. 

“At least this means no one will remember the last one last summer, I was the one being hooted at then.”

Sansa regards her curiously. 

“What are you on about Ygritte, don’t you usually wear men’s boxers?”

Ygritte runs a hand through her hair as she responds. 

“Yeah, but it was also a day that I had decided not to wear a bra, and forgot that I’d decided.”

Arya is surprised when Gendry tosses a towel over her shoulders, she’d been so distracted by the others. 

“My hero,” she says with a grin. She notices Gendry’s eyes still trailing her up and down. 

She’s not wearing anything special, a black sports bra and ordinary striped cotton knickers. So she knows he’s not just looking, he’s looking at _her_. 

“Nice to have an actual gentlemen in the guard’s chair,” Ygritte quips as Arya pulls her jeans and shirt back on and shakes off her hair, “You can bet Anguy wasn’t waiting here with a stack of towels after drills, he just laughed and catcalled while we shivered.”

Later that night, when Arya is pressed back against the equipment shack again, Gendry’s lips plundering hers, he pulls back for a moment. 

“Sorry,” he says, with a grin that tells Arya he’s entirely un-sorry, “All I can picture is those stripes across your bum.”

Arya leans forward to briefly suck on his pulse point, which she has learned makes him emit a high-pitched whine.

“What’s wrong with stripes?”

Gendry retaliates by kissing her again while rubbing the back of her neck under her ponytail. 

“Not a damn thing.”

Carefully, his hands move down her back and land on her backside, with a gentle pat. 

“Well,” Arya says, “At least we know that if I ever take off my clothes for recreational purposes around you, you won’t expect me to be wearing a lacy push up bra and matching thong. Even if I owned anything like that, I wouldn’t wear it to camp.”

Gendry snickers in her ear. 

“I would expect no different from you.”

His gentle pat turns into a playful squeeze.

“I still don’t think it’s fair for you to possess my mind like that hours later.”

Arya huffs. 

“You don’t realize it do you? Men take off their shirts all the time, and no one thinks anything of it.”

She runs her hand down the side of his neck. 

“You don’t realize it at all...you’re so-” she grunts in frustration, her hand moving back a moment to sort of gestures at his chest, “I still can’t believe you don’t have girls all over you.”

“I don’t want girls all over me though,” Gendry replies. “Hell, I don’t even understand the desire to date more than one at a time. How would you even remember anything about each of them?”

Well at least that’s something. 

“But still, we’ll go out to the climbing wall and you’ll get all sweaty and take off your shirt, without even caring what it will do to me…”

Gendry snorts, rubbing his nose against the skin of her cheek. 

“Is that your way of saying you want to go out to the climbing wall tomorrow since you’re off?”

It sort of is, but her words stand. Half the time she goes down to the lakefront, he’s got his shirt off and he’s all wet and she has to practically stop her stomach from growling. 

The climbing wall had been brand new just the last summer the Starks were there. Conquering it had become Arya’s goal that summer. She had just barely made it before they had received the call about Ned’s death. 

She’s surprised to find that it’s far easier than she recalls. Maybe she’s just gotten that much taller. 

“That was amazing!” Shireen squeals, watching her as she returns down to the ground. 

Arya grins. It’s not a hard course, but she’s glad for any appreciation. Gendry got caught up talking to Grey Worm and Loras while they demonstrate some of the others the safety equipment and rules. He’s stubbornly kept his shirt on, though the sweat is making it stick to him in very excellent ways.

“Well I used to do gymnastics…”

Shireen looks interested, so Arya goes on. 

“There’s a story as to why I stopped. If you join Gendry and I at the dock tonight, I can tell it to you both.”

Because it’s a Saturday, Gendry’s even managed to obtain a bag of broken cookies from Hot Pie for them to munch on. 

“So,” Arya starts, “Do you ever watch the Olympics, Shireen?”

“Sure,” Shireen says. She’s on her back, staring up at the moon, which is nearly full again. “I like watching the figure skating in winter.”

Arya smiles. She was immune to skating dreams mostly because of the dumb sparkly dresses for costumes. 

“When I was eight, the summer games came around, that was the year the Northern gymnasts swept the medals and all I wanted was to be up on the winners podium with them.”

“I remember that,” Gendry comments, “It was on the telly the whole season.”

“Well, I begged to be able to take lessons, and Mum and Dad found a gym really close to Winterfell, a couple of the Northern team had even trained there. I think they were both hoping that the classes would burn off all the extra energy I used to use misbehaving.”

“That’s a laugh,” Gendry interjects. 

“I loved it.” Arya admits, her knees pulled up to her chest. She misses it terribly, even now. “I’m actually planning to go back to the gym and work this school year as an assistant, now that it’s reopened.”

Gendry looks at her oddly at this point. As long as he’s known her, the Starks have always been well off, and it never really occurred to him that any of them would have to work. Arya’s said a thing or two about the company not being quite so stable, but he’s never really taken it in before now. 

“I still love gymnastics, but I would never be involved with anyone aiming for the Olympics again. I saw girls there who had dropped out of school to train eight hours a day.”

Shireen’s eyes go wide. Arya has gathered from Gendry's stories that Shireen values education greatly. 

“And there was this one coach- Coach Hagar, everyone called him Jaqen- who was...I hate to say it, but he seemed sort of like a cult leader. He was from Braavos and kind of a legend there. He hand-picked girls for his elite team, they were the real gold medal hopefuls. Everyone wanted to be one of them, including me. But he demanded absolute obedience. He discouraged any kind of outside activities, dating, even doing other sports. If he told you to do something to improve, you did it, no questions asked.”

Arya meets Gendry’s eye and the pair share a wink. 

“I was never any good at that, so I was never going to end up there.”

Arya rolls flat on her back between the two of them.

“After I came home from camp, there were two deaths on Jaqen’s team, one after another. One died of an eating disorder. That was awful, but that’s a known among athletic circles. Then, less than a month later, one of her teammates slammed her head into the balance beam, trying a mount she wasn’t ready for. Broke her neck, she died less than a week later. If she’d lived, she would have been a quad.”

Arya bites her lip before continuing. 

“But the nail in his coffin came when one of his team accused him of- of having, well, groomed her for several years.”

Shireen’s eyes go wide and Gendry rolls over so she can’t see his face. 

“Her parents apparently didn’t believe her, but me and several others did, and we reported it. It made the news, he got fired, and the whole gym ended up closing during the scandal.”

Arya stares off at the moon. 

“It’s strange. I was so sad, so down about Dad dying...that I don’t think I could have resisted the urge to join. Jaqen always seemed to want his gymnasts to think of absolutely nothing else, like he wanted them to forget who they were. At first, that was all I wanted was to disappear, to forget so it wouldn’t hurt anymore. That didn’t last, and I think the scandal helped. It pulled off the mask and made me realize I could never do that, I could never stop being me.”

“Was your Mum disappointed?” Gendry asks. Arya smiles, she knows she went on for so long about being scared her mother was always going to be disappointed in her. 

“A little, I think she was mostly proud that I hadn’t let myself be dragged in too deeply. And after Dad passed, suddenly having one less expense every month was a good thing.”

Leaning to one side, Arya notices Shireen has an odd look on her face. There’s a pinch in her stomach and something nagging at the back of her mind, 

“It is pretty late,” Gendry cuts in looking to Shireen, “Want us to walk you back to your cabin?”

Shireen swallows roughly, and shakes her head. 

“It’s OK, the moon’s bright, I can make it fine.”

And with that, she stands and returns to camp. 

“Did I say something wrong?” Arya asks, uncertain. 

Gendry exhales slowly. 

“No. It’s not what you said, sometimes things you don’t expect drag things up when you least expect it.”

He pauses before asking. 

“You really think you could have lost yourself to training like that?”

Arya nods. 

“It would have been easy. Dad always used to go on about how I could join the team during secondary school and get scholarship money. That seemed much more sensible, but the allure of the Olympics is hard to pass up for practical plans like that. I’m glad something stopped me.”

The two of them are silent for a bit. It’s such a serious spot to end the conversation, that she desperately looks for a way to change the subject. Arya pulls herself up to a sitting position, she raises an eyebrow at Gendry. 

“So you, uhh, want to take this elsewhere?”

Arya’s actually really glad Gendry had admitted to not having much more experience than her, because this is uncharted territory. Not the kissing, she could figure that out just fine, but the process of getting to the kissing. 

He turns a bit pink, but stands, and offers his hand. 

Like this, how on earth are you supposed to ask someone if they want to go make out behind the equipment shed? Arya supposes she could ask Sansa, but there was still a chance she might roll her eyes. Like it was something she was just supposed to magically understand.

They’re sitting on the grass this time, Arya kind of half leaning over his lap while they kiss. Gendry raises his left hand and it lands between her shoulder blades, and she thinks he’s trying to pull her closer, but his hand presses, and then he kind of freezes against her mouth. 

“Erm-” he starts. Arya can see him blushing even in the moonlight, she’s so close she could count his freckles, “How come you aren’t wearing a bra?”

Arya furrows her brow in confusion. The last several days had been unusually hot, even for the Stormlands in the summer, and she had changed out of her jeans almost as soon as she could. She’s in the same jersey and shorts she always wore to bed. 

“Because I’m in my pajamas- I never- wait, Gendry, you do realize most women don’t sleep in their bras right?”

Gendry’s face is straight up glowing now. 

“Never really thought about it.”

Arya snickers. At least she’s not the only one a little clueless sometimes. He looks like he doesn’t know what to do, so in a fit of impulsiveness, she grabs his right hand and guides it to her breast. 

“And since we are actually friends,” she starts, while he squeezes experimentally, “maybe you could explain to me what exactly it is that straight men see in boobs.”

Gendry shrugs, his cheeks still aflame. She is almost sitting in his lap now, her knees bracketing one of his thighs. In a single movement, he turns her around so she is sitting full in his lap, but facing away from him. He squeezes her waist in one hand, and returns his other to keep touching her breasts through her jersey. He kisses the side of her neck.

“I just think they’re nice is all.”

Arya can’t restrain her snort. 

“You know, that’s actually pretty much what Sansa told me when I asked her.”

As happy as Sansa had been that when she came out, Arya had accepted her no question. She had been less pleased by the cavalcade of inappropriate questions that she followed up with. 

Arya cranes her neck so she can keep kissing him. The angle is weird, so she mostly contents herself with kissing his chin and throat instead. His hands feel good on her, and her mind starts wandering about all the other places he could be touching, places on him she could be touching. 

“Hmm,” she says after several minutes, “We should probably go back. Don’t want to be too tired tomorrow morning.”

It’s a few more minutes before either of them disentangle and stand. 

When she straightens her clothes, Arya is suddenly seized by an idea. 

“Gendry,” she says, quietly. 

When he raises his head to look at her, Arya grabs the bottom of her jersey and quickly lifts it up to her chin. 

The stupid grin that appears on his face warms Arya to the core. She drops her shirt and giggles, unusually girlishly. 

“Seven hells,” she whispers breathlessly, “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

Arya spins on one heel and leaves Gendry, still stunned, in the dust. 

She returns to the cabin, still somehow feeling lighter than air. 

She’s so lost in her own head that she doesn’t notice Ygritte, still awake in her bunk, staring silently at a letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts of this chapter courtesy of me re-reading Little Girls in Pretty Boxes. Horrifying, it is.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG TW in this chapter for discussion of an incident of religiously motivated child abuse. Please read responsibly.

Halfway through second session, Sansa’s halfway through reading a letter when she suddenly starts slapping the side of Arya’s arm, making her drop her sandwich. 

“You’re never going to believe this!” she gushes, pushing the folded letter at Arya. She takes it and scans the words quickly. 

Gendry has paused eating his soup. 

“What is it?”

Arya can barely believe her eyes. There’s a polaroid photo included and Arya runs her finger over it. 

“Robb wrote that Nymeria came home. Gods, it’s been six years, I figured…”

She doesn’t say. There are still wolves in the north. She stares at the photo, at Nym’s blue eyes, at her gray markings. She wonders if she will even remember her.

It’s nice for a letter to bring good news this time. 

She’s sick of Ygritte being so distant, so between her and Sansa, they decide to ambush her during the next rest period. 

They both approach her on her cot with arms crossed. 

“OK, Ygritte, we’re not leaving until you tell us what’s wrong.”

She tries to stare them down, but Arya and Sansa are better at it than her. With a deep sigh, she reaches into her trunk at the end of her bunk and pulls out a folded, battered letter. 

Arya scans the back before turning it over. Sansa hunches over her shoulder so they both can read at the same time. 

“You didn’t tell us you heard from Jon,” she says, miffed, “He hasn’t written any of us yet.”

Sansa’s still reading while Arya talks and gets to the middle of the letter first. She clamps her hands over her mouth to stifle a squeal. 

Ygritte looks at them both, and mutters, helpfully, as though they hadn’t just read the letter. 

“He asked me to marry him.”

Sansa squeals and her hands fly to her mouth. After she’s calmed down, she asks. 

“Don’t you want to be part of our family?”

Arya rolls her eyes. 

“Don’t mind her, she’s as big a romantic moron as Jon has always been. Also-”

Arya runs her finger along one line in the letter. 

“He asked you, ‘how you would feel about getting married’, pretty sure that’s as indirect as Jon can get. He’s probably terrified of what you’ll say.”

Ygritte looks at Arya dubiously. 

“So what should I tell him?”

Arya shrugs. 

“Tell him how you do feel about getting married. Which, I might ask, is what?”

Ygritte sighs and pulls her knees up to her chest. 

“It’s not that I never want to get married, but seven hells, I’m only twenty. I see half the girls who leave school up north at sixteen and get married immediately. They’re my age and half of them already have kids and the other half work shit waitressing jobs while their husband’s run sheep and drink, and it’s just- Forever is such a long, long time to think about...”

Arya rolls her eyes.

“Then tell him that.”

“Isn’t that a little-”

Arya rolls them again, and sits at the end of Ygritte’s bunk. 

“Ygritte, you’re the only serious girlfriend Jon’s ever had. You’ve been together for like, five years, and he never even looks at other girls. I’m pretty sure telling him you’re scared to get married so young won’t be a deal breaker.”

“It’s also sort of a cliche for young soldiers to marry immediately upon enlistment, then come home and discover their wives were unfaithful, might want to remind Jon of that,” Sansa comments. Arya snorts. Sansa watches far too many sappy made for TV movies. She’s heard Robb’s friend Theon make a couple of cracks at Jon to make sure he doesn’t get himself tied to a “dependapotamus” too. Arya had lashed out at Theon for being insensitive as usual, but on his rare phone calls, Jon had claimed to understand, saying that many of the other recruits weren't exactly bastions of rational decision making.

“Just,” Arya adds before she leaves with Sansa, “Don’t panic and make a decision you’ll regret later.” She should write Jon and remind him to keep that in mind too. She’ll go get some stationary at the tuck shop later. “Take your time. That’s one of the benefits of only being able to get snail mail out here.”

Marriage, Arya can barely believe it. It’s such a grown up concern, out here in the woods. She thinks of Jon, off with the Air Force, standing and marching, and wonders if he wishes he were here, even when he is also thinking of marriage. 

Later that week, Gendry comes to breakfast whistling. When Arya eyes him, he rolls up his shirt sleeve. 

“Made it twenty-four hours without a patch. I now declare myself free of nicotine’s power over my mind and my wallet.”

Arya gives him a high-five and Shireen follows up. 

“Shireen was the one who really pushed me to quit,” Gendry confides in Arya. “She really doesn’t like fire, and is apparently invested in me living to old age.”

Gendry’s so pleased with himself that Arya hates reminding him that the canoe races start today. He slumps over when she does. Gendry’s really not suited to a counselor role, he’s far too anti-social, but he’s quite good at enforcing rules and enforcing them fairly. But the races bring out the most rambunctious and the most competitive among the campers and there are frequently tears and occasionally blood. He spends the days of the races even more sullen than normal.

The day of the semi-final races, Tommen Baratheon flips out of his canoe and doesn’t come back up. A blow of the whistle, and it’s the first actual rescue Arya’s seen happen at camp in years. The air is thick with anticipation, as everyone stays still, buddy arms up, watching the water. 

The canoes are still sitting idle when Gendry jumps in and pulls Tommen from the water. He’s limp and pale, and Gendry lays him on the shore, and checks his airway. He hasn’t even had a chance to check his pulse when Tommen coughs and the air thins and everyone can breathe again.

“That was fucking terrifying,” he admits to Arya, “but...sort of exhilarating too.”

“It was exhilarating to watch,” Arya tells him. It’s true, she rarely gets to see him so confident and self-assured. It’s like watching a great athlete play, but Gendry’s never really been able to give half a hoot about competition when they played anything. It’s such a huge change, to see him so... sure of himself. It’s nice, really.

But even afterwards, he’s tense through the end of the races, a tiny bit shaken up by the save. 

The night the races end, he looks incredibly relieved. That’s the same night that Shireen whispers to Arya. 

“My cabin’s doing a snack raid tonight. You should bring Gendry and help him cheer up.”

That Arya can definitely handle, she’d been so disappointed at the end of first session when Hot Pie hadn’t managed to tell them when any of these were planned. 

After campfire, Arya grabs his hand. 

“Snack orgy tonight with Shireen’s cabin, give me five minutes to change into my stretchy trousers.”

Snack raids were always an exciting event as a camper. Despite this, Arya is still a bit disappointed in herself that she never realized how carefully they were planned. They not only never got caught, but they always seemed to happen right when there were two or three of the big ten gallon ice cream drums close to their expiration dates. And somehow, the kitchen staff never locked up or put the toppings away. 

Not that any of this knowledge stops Arya from loading up her sundae with crushed pineapple and whipped cream. 

Shireen’s cabin is young enough that snack raids are an entirely new concept, so thankfully they are too excited by the ice cream to truly cause any real mischief, and keeping an eye on them in the kitchen is easy. 

“Y’know, the first time we did this, Sansa was completely convinced we were going to get kicked out if we were caught,” Arya whispers to Shireen while Gendry squirts the can of whipped cream into a camper’s open mouth.

“She always was the rule abiding type,” Gendry adds. 

Shireen slumps a bit, her cheeks red. 

“I’ve always been like that too.”

The whole group is quiet for a bit, when one of the younger girls approaches with her spoon. 

“Will the cold make your face stop hurting?”

Shireen smiles. 

“Thank you for thinking of me, Lily, but it’s just scar tissue, it doesn’t hurt.”

Shireen’s eyes drift downward as the girl pads away, and Arya forces her mouth to stay closed but the words start tumbling from Shireen’s mouth regardless. 

“Arya, you said you thought the Lord of Light was from Essos, did you ever hear about his followers affinity for fire?”

Arya is frozen, her eyes trailing towards Gendry, who is nearly as still as she is. 

“No, no I can’t say I have.”

Shireen’s tilting forward, her bowl of strawberry ice cream sitting at her chin, untouched.

“That’s his follower’s favorite topic, cleansing and blessing by fire. When I was young and my father first started making me go to services with mum, it was all they talked about. Then a new priestess came to Dragonstone, all the way from Asshai. She was different. She didn’t just like talking about it. No matter how short a sermon was, there was always a fire on the altar.”

Next to her, Arya watches Gendry stiffen. 

“After that, we had to go to chapel every night, not just on Sundays. We weren’t supposed to do anything else at all it seemed. And her sermons were longer, and bigger. She made people stand up and profess things...and they burned things. At first it was just books and things she insisted were wrong, but then…”

Arya’s mind is racing. She knows the sort of thing Shireen was describing. In history class a few years they’d learned the word. A cult. Arya darts her eyes around trying to see if anyone else is listening, but thankfully the younger girls are chattering away.

Shireen reaches up and touches the side of her face.

“I had chicken pox bad as a kid, it left some nasty scars. My mum used to try and cover it up, but it always stuck out.”

Arya nods.

“I was so upset they got the vaccination like, a year, after I had it.”

She’s desperately trying to lighten the mood. She knows sometimes when people ask about her parents and her past, her words could get sort of heavy. It went with the territory, but Arya’s actually almost frightened of where this goes.

“This priestess, her name was Melisandre. I don’t know if that was her first or last name. She sort of fixated on my scars. Kept saying she would purify me of them.”

Arya’s beginning to shake as she thinks of what could be coming.

“I’d seen her...the chapel had a fire of hot coals. Standing over them was said to purify your breath. She would sometimes call people to the front of the congregation and have them lay their hands on the coals, for what she said was ‘spiritual healing’”. 

Shireen’s hugging her middle with both arms now. 

“She used to take my father aside and talk to him, and he always came away angry, until one day he didn’t. One day, Melisandre spoke to him, and he led me to the front. I don’t remember thinking anything was strange, until she held the coal to my face.”

Arya’s stomach churns. It’s taking near all her power to keep her sundae down.

“I don’t really remember it that well. I think I must have screamed, but all the rest I remember is the smell. Like cooked meat.” 

“That must have been when Mr Davos called emergency services,” Gendry interrupts. Arya frowns slightly, somehow still being able to express further confusion at his response.

Shireen nods. 

“I was in hospital for a while, then I went straight into care. The nurses kept going on about how lucky I was not to lose my eye…”

“They like to do that,” Arya interrupts. She has to interrupt. Shireen’s eyes are shining like she’s going to cry and if she cries, Arya won’t be able to stop herself and they’ll have a mess hall full of curious pre-pubescent girls who have magically managed to not hear this terrible story. “When Bran was in hospital after his accident, he said they wouldn’t stop talking about how much worse it could have been.”

Shireen chuckles grimly, but otherwise stays quiet, her eyes squeezed shut. Arya and Gendry both lean forward at about the same time and each hug about half of her. It feels so strange that Arya already knows how to do this with so much grace.

When they walk back, Arya asks Gendry quietly, 

“You knew all of this?”

He nods. 

“Mr Davos took us in at the same time, he used to be close to her father. He hardly spoke at all when he brought her home from hospital. We had to take her in for appointments regularly after that, for nearly a year. She had to have skin grafts and all that jazz.”

Arya stays silent for a bit.

“How is she dealing with it?”

Gendry pinches his nose and squeezes his eyes shut.

“I don’t think she is. She doesn’t say a word, and last time her parents had supervised visitation, she went completely stony faced for a week, and for another week after the visit. I used to think it was just to deal with the media- there was a fair amount for about a week on TV down in the Crownlands about the ‘mad rich people cult’ down in Dragonstone before something else took over. That’s why I let her keep going, because she never talks at all about it.”

Arya sighs. She knows that too well, sucking all your feelings in and keeping them inside until they threaten to explode.

“I should tell her to talk to Bran,” Arya says, thinking, “He was always the only one of us who was good at feelings, I think his cabin’s up for archery rankings in a few days, I’ll have to ask him while we’re at that.”

Arya chuckles. And if talking doesn’t help, shooting things might, even if it involves sacrificing one of her precious days off.

Arya has hardly seen Meera this past week because she’s been setting things up. The Mormont girl who’s her junior this year looks the same as every other Mormont. Arya has missed archery a lot, it’s not something she can exactly practice at home.

For added fun, it turns out Bran can still draw and shoot even without dropping the arm of his chair.

Bran tells her he’s spoken with Shireen a bit at meals and when their cabins share activities. Arya asks him if Shireen has talked to him at all about her past.

“Just little bits here and there, I never wanted to pry.”

“I’m not telling you to pry but...Gendry says he thinks she really needs to talk to someone.”

“Y’know of all the things I thought would be different after the accident, I never thought that it would make people talk to me about everything. At this point they should just give me a therapist’s license.”

Arya feels a smile quirk at the corners of her mouth. 

“It’s because they know you can’t run away.”

There’s a brief lull when Meera pauses to announce the current rankings. Arya watches Bran’s eyes linger a bit on her and can’t resist the urge to tease.

“Still?” she asks. 

Bran sighs. 

“Still.”

The summer before the Starks had first come to Camp Durrandon, Meera and her brother Jojen had both spent the summer up north with them, their father having been an old friend of Ned’s. 

“At least we don’t have to fight over her attention anymore.” Arya comments. Not that they’d ever really wanted the same sort of attention from Meera. Being twelve to Arya’s ten and Bran’s nine, she hadn’t paid either of them any mind that year, choosing instead to spend the summer trying to climb every tree on the grounds of Winterfell, and very nearly succeeding.

Something pricks at the back of Arya’s mind and she asks. 

“Has she been being kind of distant lately or is it just me?”

Bran turns and cocks his head in Arya’s direction, his face disbelieving. 

“Well it is her last summer here, I think it would be pretty normal to be a little sad.”

Arya’s eyebrows fly up into her hairline. Her mind had somehow skipped over that fact. 

“I don’t think I even processed that. Her not being here with us will be so strange.”

Bran shrugs. 

“Well it’s not like the conservation corps have summer holidays. It’ll be three years until she returns to civilization full time.”

Bran’s ears are a little pink, and it suddenly hits Arya that he and Meera are only one year further apart than her and Gendry.

“You ever think of telling her?”

“I don’t know what good it would do, especially now. Maybe I’ll tell when she gets back.”

“Do you think you’ll still feel that way after three whole years?”

Bran’s eyes get the strange, old look they get sometimes when he’s thinking hard. Mum had once laughed and said Bran seemingly had a soul a thousand years older than him. 

“I mean, I didn’t think I would still feel this way now. I thought I would grow up and my feelings would fade. That’s the way it always goes in films. But I haven’t.”

Arya smiles, and pats Bran on the shoulder. 

“You see? Things like this are why I say you’re better at feelings than me.”

It doesn’t take much prodding for Bran to agree to talk to Shireen more when their cabins do activities together, and by the end of the rankings, Arya places rather well considering she hasn’t shot in years. 

That night, in their cabin, Arya ambushes Meera with a hug. Ygritte’s gone to the tuck shop to buy some more paper, but she hasn’t mentioned if she’d written Jon back yet. Regardless, it leaves Arya and Meera alone.

“M’sorry, I didn’t even realize you might not be coming back next summer.”

Meera still, but laughs.

“It’s okay. I’ve not tried to think about it too much either. It’s all so big...no more summer holidays, no more exams, no more uniforms with skirts and ties.”

Arya chuckles and tries not to be glad that the school system in Winterfell didn’t require uniforms after junior school.

“I think that’s part of the reason I always liked coming here so much. It’s like all the rest of the world disappears for three months.”

And Arya realizes that’s so much of the reason why she loves it here too.

And she realizes the next day at the kickball tournament that second session is one day away from ending. 

She’s in the stands with most of the camp, watching Shireen’s cabin going against Myrcella Baratheon’s, and only half paying attention when she realizes Ygritte and Sansa to her side are spiritedly debating as to the baseball euphemisms. 

“I’m just saying,” Sansa starts, “Doesn’t it basically imply that lesbians can never hit a home run?”

Arya snorts. 

“Well I didn’t come up with the thing,” Ygritte responds, “You like girls, make your own metaphor.”

“Maybe that means that you can still go to Mum’s church on Maiden’s Day with a clear conscience,” Arya teases Sansa, “Since according to this bit of common knowledge you have no way of not being a virgin.”

Sansa huffs.

“The bases are sort of vague,” Arya continues, “especially since I’ve only ever heard them described as second being above the waist and third being below.”

“True,” Ygritte agrees, “I mean, a fella touching your chest through your sweater isn’t quite the same as being stripped to the waist and him sucking your chest full of love bites.”

The back of Arya’s neck goes pink, and later that night when her and Gendry are on the ground behind the equipment shed again.

A few nights ago, he’d snaked one hand up her shirt and gently begun to tug on her nipples. Tonight it only takes a little convincing to make him duck his head and experimentally take one between his lips. 

Second base, head first, Arya thinks with a giggle. Looking up at her, Gendry’s eyes have a mischievous twinkle, one she hasn’t seen on him a lot. 

“Something gotten into you tonight?”

Arya reaches out and runs her hand along the side of his face, fingers catching on the slight hint of a beard he doesn’t bother shaving out here. 

“Just thinking about some things.”

“Good things?”

Arya tugs on his ear to pull him up into a kiss before responding. 

“Mostly.”

She’s thinking about how good this feels, how nice Gendry looks in the moonlight. She’s thinking of sports euphemisms and the hide and seek game tomorrow. She is pointedly not thinking of Ygritte’s letter and Meera’s job. And she is definitely not thinking about summer being almost over.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another big TW this chapter for discussion of molestation by a foster parent.

Second session comes to a close. 

Hide and seek only takes two hours this year (Arya long ago found the best hiding place, underneath the kitchen employees snack table behind the mess hall, but Clegane rats her out this time). The Wizard of Oz goes off with no stage fright and no flubbed lines, and only one munchkin who has to run off to the latrines prematurely. 

The dance comes, and Arya even wears a skirt for it. 

The dance is over now, and around the campfire the lingering counselors have plundered the prize smuggled in yesterday in Loras’s truck - two whole cases of beer. There wasn’t enough to go around for anyone to really get drunk but most of them were at least nursing a bottle. If no one got in trouble, Brienne would be none the wiser.

Most of the unit counselors have left, begrudgingly. They’ll get their revenge when everyone at activities has to work tomorrow all day when the kids are gone. Meera had taken one bottle and snuck off for solitude. Ygritte had grumbled the whole dance, she was stuck on lights out patrol the last night of session. Bran left too, laughing that alcohol and wheelchairs didn’t mix. 

All around the campfire, everyone’s drinking their beer, laughing and singing.

Arya and her companions are off to one side, and a couple are still fixated on the skirt. 

She holds out the ends of the fabric, showing Shireen. 

“I pretty much live in jeans and sweaters and hoodies up north. I haven’t worn a skirt or dress voluntarily since my junior school days when we had uniforms. Well about a year and a half ago I tore the knees out of my favorite jeans. I was going to throw them away, but Sansa fished them out, cut the inseams and patched the gaps with one of our dad’s old flannel shirts.”

They still had a whole box of Ned’s flannel shirts, waiting for them to find a use for them. Robb and Jon were both still too slim to wear them. Sometimes Arya would pull one on, letting it fall down nearly to her knees, and pretend she could still smell him. Ned had always smelled like pine and snow to her, no matter where they were.

“I loved it, because of that and because Sansa made it just for me. But I only wore it once.”

“I forgot about that,” Sansa admits.

Arya feels herself turning red, and she knows it’s not the beer, she’s only had half a bottle. 

“I wish I could. I wore it to school once, one of the only days it was warm enough.”

She had always shaken her head at Sansa, who wore dresses and skirts to school all the time, with or without leggings or tights, no matter the amount of snow on the ground. She could be shivering under her winter coat and hat and boots, but still refuse to change.

“I didn’t really think anything of it, but everyone else sure seemed to. Mum fussed over me all morning and when I got to school, I kept hearing whispers and snickers. I even heard someone say ‘guess she really is a girl after all’. It was mortifying, and I never wore it again.”

Shireen frowns, even harder than she was before. She had taken exactly one drink of her beer and had winced.

“Why would people act like that just over seeing a girl in a skirt?”

Gendry snorts. He’s only been sipping his beer, and with a pang, Arya remembers that his mother had always said, that his father had just been some drunk. 

“They probably thought they had wandered into some teen flick and she was having a dramatic makeover into the class beauty everyone would want.”

Arya feels herself burn, and she knows it’s not the beer talking. 

“Yes, it was like they thought that just because I wore a skirt that I would stop playing sports and start hanging out at the mall and fawning over boys instead.”

Gendry starts laughing so Arya sticks her tongue out at him. 

“Nope, you’re not getting any fawning, none at all. Mum was the worst actually. She always thought that one day I would wake up transformed into the proper girl she wanted me to be, like Sansa.”

“You and Mum never did see eye to eye,” Sansa admits, quietly. Her two bottles are both empty and there’s a tinge of sadness to her voice.

Arya pulls her knees up to her chest. 

“She could never understand why I would rather go to the park with the dogs, or to White Harbour for a game, or beg Jon to teach me to drive on a Saturday instead of, I don’t know, getting my hair or nails done like you.”

“It wasn’t always perfect between us,” Sansa admits, “Sometimes I could be too much even for mum. You weren’t around that time I threw a tantrum because she said I couldn’t go clubbing with the rest of the cast after the Music Man closed, because it was after curfew.”

Sansa’s quiet for a long moment.

“I wonder if she would fight me again over this next year.”

Arya flops flat on her back. 

“You did fine on your A-levels Sansa, and you’re hardly the first person to take a gap year to work.”

Shireen frowns off to her side.

“You’re out of school already? I thought you said you were seventeen?”

Sansa nods, then giggles.

“There was some fuss with our birthdays when we both entered school. I turn eighteen in October, Arya’s seventeen in November. I just finished my A-levels, Arya’s going into her last year.”

Sansa quiets after this. Arya knows she had agonized over this. She had done decently on exams, true, but she really did want to pursue acting. The theater scene in Winterfell, indeed, in all of the North was so very small, that her only hope was to leave and move somewhere like the Riverlands, or hopefully the Reach. And all for Sansa’s confidence, leaving home like that terrified her. 

Shireen turns her attention to Arya, who suddenly feels the need to take a long swig of her beer. 

“What are you taking?’

Arya grimaces, “English, maths, biology, phys ed, and Braavosi.”

She bites her lip. 

“Mum would probably still say that’s not enough.”

The beer isn’t helping, her stomach feels like there’s a rock in it. Part of her wants to keep going, but is terrified of letting it out. Across the campfire, Loras has started making out with Renly Baratheon, the boys head counselor, and no one is paying any attention to the group in the little corner. 

“Do you remember Ned Dayne?” she asks Gendry, eye half-closed in his direction. Gendry snorts, like a bull would, not like he’s laughing. 

“I hated him.”

Arya scoffs. Ned had come to camp with them the second year, invited along as the son of a long time family friend. The rest of the Brotherhood had liked him, Gendry had not.

“You did not hate him, you were ten. Well, last year Ned came north to stay with his aunt for a few months.”

Sansa’s eyeing her oddly, trying to work out the timeline and looking wary. 

“There was a beginning of term dance. I didn’t really want to go, but Ned offered to take me because he thought I was afraid to go alone, and- Gendry wipe that pout off your face-”

His pout is extremely obvious too, even Shireen’s giggling in his direction. She had never really understood why him and Ned got on each other’s nerves so easily, having always chalked it up to them just having different temperaments.

“Ned and I are just friends, we both knew it…” her voice thins and turns rough, “Mum didn’t seem to get the memo though.”

Sansa interrupts. 

“Was that what-”

Arya nods. 

“She couldn’t stop going on about how sweet we were together, and and, how happy Dad would have been…”

That was the part that had hurt the most, that it felt like Mum had been using Dad against her, even if that hadn’t been her intention. 

“She tried to convince me to take him to this fancy charity event she was planning for the company, and I just, I got so mad…”

Tears threaten to spill out, and she wipes her face with the back of her hand.

“I told her that I wasn’t going to go to her stupid event, alone or with Ned. I told her that she was never going to understand me and that I wished…I wished that Dad was still here instead of her.”

Arya’s crying now openly, and the others are just watching her. 

“Her and Bran’s accident was the next day. Mum died thinking I hated her.”

Arya’s so lost in her words, that she doesn’t even notice when Sansa roughly tipsy-tackles her.

“She did not. You had a fight over something stupid and you lost your temper and said something you didn’t mean. Arya, it’s not the first time you’ve done that. She knew you didn’t hate her.”

Off to the side, she can hear Shireen opening her mouth.

“So much for not being in a film. Is this where we all share our deepest secrets? You already know mine.”

The tone seems almost bitter for Shireen, but Arya could hug her at this moment, for taking the attention off of her confession. 

“Then my turn is done, someone else take a turn.”

Sansa squeezes her one last time, whispering into her hair. 

“You’re so much more lovable than you seem to believe Arya,” she spares a glance in Gendry’s direction before letting go and standing up, “Maybe you’ll come to see it yourself.”

Once Sansa leaves for the other side of the campfire, it’s quiet for a few minutes. Arya studies the stars, feels the warmth of the fire at her back and breathes in the soft scent of smoke. It’s true, she does feel a bit lighter.

After several minutes, Gendry breaks the silence. 

“After we left camp the last time...the foster mother I had after molested me for most of that year.”

Arya feels her throat go dry, her mind go fuzzy. She thinks she makes some noises but none of them are words, or at least she hopes they aren’t.

“At least you’re using the word now,” Shireen comments, and Arya feels even more almost words try and get out.

“Shireen,” she starts off, “Wasn’t she the one who-”

Shireen nods, but Gendry isn’t paying attention. His voice drones on like a tape stretched out from too many plays. 

“I’m not sure if Melisandre was her given or family name either. That’s just what she told me to call her. She hadn’t been living in King’s Landing long before...I should have known she was strange from day 1. I’d never even heard of the Lord of Light before, but she made me keep the little religious rituals. That wasn’t really so bad…”

He swallows roughly. 

“She was really affectionate right off the bat. I didn’t think anything of that either, I’ve had some foster parents who freaked out if I so much as bumped into them and I thought this was better. It didn’t help that she was beautiful. “

“She really was,” Shireen admits, swigging her beer. Arya notes that it’s mostly gone now, as though Shireen had been using it to distract from the conversation. “Like, film star beautiful.”

“Then the weirdness started. She would stare into her little flame on her altar for hours, or spend most of the day speaking in a language I didn’t recognize. Sometimes she would corner me while in this state, and get way too close.”

Shireen’s finished her beer, and stood and set to leave. Arya doesn’t blame her. She feels well and truly drunk, her head swimming and her stomach threatening to turn itself over. 

“Then it got to the point she would try and kiss me while muttering some shit about the will of R’hllorr. It would be a lie to say I didn’t enjoy this at first. That’s why some of it feels like my fault, like I should have done something earlier.”

Arya hates every inch of guilt on his face. 

“You were what, fifteen then? You couldn’t have...would you have thought differently if you had been a girl, or younger?”

Gendry won’t look at her now. 

“But by the time she started saying things about bloodlines and sticking her hands down my shorts I knew everything was wrong, but I didn’t know how to make her stop.”

“I’m so sorry,” Arya starts, turning on one side to face him, “That was horrible. She was supposed to be a parent, no parent should ever do anything like that.”

Gendry chuckles roughly. 

“I had a decent reputation with the social workers. I wasn’t a problem case. I still led off with the religious ranting, because I still thought they might not believe me. They did though, and even leaving with another bin bag, I was ecstatic. I was in a boy’s group home for a few months until Davos took me in. Those months were when she went to Dragonstone.”

Arya’s eyes go wide. 

“They let her?”

“They had to build a case. They could bar her from taking in other kids or working at a school, but until they got all my statements, they couldn’t stop her from traveling within the territory and preaching.”

“Did they-” 

“It was easier after Shireen. Because of what she did to her, with witnesses, they got the order to hold her against her will within the day. She’s in an in-treatment facility now, and has been declared unfit to stand trial. Diagnosis of hallucinations and delusions, apparently they’re religiously oriented quite a lot. Until she’s not, what happened to me is just a file in a police station.” 

Arya sighs deeply. Her mother had always been very religious, and while Arya had rarely shared her enthusiasm, none of it had ever frightened her.  
She remembers that Gendry never really put any stock in the barely there prayers and religious songs at camp, she always thought he was in the same boat as her. 

She watches Gendry’s face, his eyes half closed, his lips set straight. A horrible thought hits her suddenly. 

“I didn’t- nothing I’ve done when we’re...I don’t make you remember it do I?”

Gendry sighs, and reaches out to push a bit of her hair back over the side of her face.

“No. I didn’t tell you this to make you pity me, or so you’d treat me like I was going to break.”

Arya feels her eyes water as she asks, “Then why did you tell me.”

Gendry exhales roughly. 

“I guess I’m just so sick of feeling like it’s a secret. It’s not something you can just drop on people. What I said earlier this summer was true, it was much easier to focus on work and school instead of trying to date. But it’s not just that. After what she did to me, it was really hard to think of trusting a complete stranger again. It took me a long time to warm up to Davos and his wife, and even Shireen.”

Arya sighs softly, breathing in the night air. 

“But you trust me?”

Gendry runs his fingers along one of her cheeks, and even though it’s gentle and simple, it makes her skin tingle.

“I do. Besides, you’re not a complete stranger. What Sansa says was right though, you’re so much more lovable than you give yourself credit for.”

Arya scoffs, though her heart swells inside her. 

“You too,” she whispers. Gendry shakes his head.

“I think that’s just you, and maybe Shireen. I think your siblings only put up with me because of you. Everyone else seems to think I’m a giant prick.”

Arya pouts. 

“That’s not true!”

Gendry laughs. 

“It’s fine. The people who actually matter don’t.”

He flexes his arm and rolls Arya closer. She presses her nose into the side of his neck and breathes in deeply. Warm skin, hint of suncream.

They’re quiet for a time, and Arya drinks the moment in. 

“If this is a big scene in a film, any other secrets you want to let out here?” she asks with a smirk. 

Gendry breathes deeply for a moment. 

“Lem gave me some info on an apprenticeship in King’s Landing I might go out for.”

Arya purses her lips. 

“An apprenticeship? What for?”

“To be a paramedic.”

Arya’s eyes go wide. She thinks back on his uncertainty about his future.

“That’s a great idea! You already have something resembling experience too.”

Gendry smiles, though his face still looks a bit hesitant. 

“I think so too, especially after what happened during the canoe races. I just- I’m tired of not knowing what I want. I want to make something of myself, show everyone I’m worthy, that I’m not just some lost kid to be pitied and looked down upon.”

Arya kisses his chin.

“Just remember you don’t need to prove anything to be worth it to me.”

Gendry breathes softly, and rolls so they’re closer together, nearly pressed nose-to-nose. 

“It’s not a guarantee, it’s a hard spot to get. It’s not just recent grads, working adults can apply too.”

Arya smiles. 

“After this past year with Bran, I’ve been considering physical therapy.”

“That’d be a good fit, given your background.”

“I thought so. Though apparently you’re competing with a ton of failed med school applicants. I’ll have to really buckle down this year.”

She groans deeply. The two beers she had is making her blood feel hot.

“I don’t want to think about school, it’s the summer holidays.”

So after that, they don’t talk anymore about the future. 

Morning comes, with the sun, and only a few hangovers. The campers leave, and the unit counselors slack off. Out in the stables, Arya and Ygritte muck and chat. Much like her and Gendry, they don’t talk about the future.


	8. Chapter 8

Third session gets underway far too fast. 

The play third session is Peter Pan. And being that the program turns out to have exactly one boy in it, the Lost Boys this year, will be entirely lost girls. Sansa says they’re such a motley bunch, the costume crew won’t have too much work to do. Not that they generally do, most of the Lost Boy costumes are made from camper’s own clothing.

And it also means Sansa has an excuse. 

“This whole lot’s too immature to handle the bit where Peter and Wendy kiss.”

Arya raises an eyebrow. 

“Which you are definitely not taking advantage of.”

Sansa shrugs, barely even a tinge of pink to her cheeks. 

“Peter Pan’s supposed to be played by a girl anyway. And if I get to snog Margaery during rehearsal and on stage, so what if I enjoy it? It’s almost the end of summer. We might not have much time left.”

That surprises Arya, that Sansa’s taking this so in stride. She was always such a romantic, so sure of happily-ever-afters. She expected her to be the one broken hearted at the idea of a summer camp romance ending.

“You’re not going to try to keep in touch after summer?”

Sansa shrugs again. 

“She’s already in her second year of uni up at Hightower. She wants to be a politician. Even if we kept in touch and fell madly in love, I can’t imagine I would want a life like that, always in the spotlight, potentially every little secret being dragged through the mud and over hot coals at the public’s whim. Maybe it’s better to enjoy some things that might be short while you have them rather than try and drag them out.”

She turns to her sister. 

“Don’t think I mean the same for you though. If you and Gendry could pick back up like this after four years, there’s no reason you shouldn’t try.”

Arya’s glad for the vote of reassurance. It’s one that’s been weighing on her. 

Since his confession at the campfire, things have gotten somehow easier and more heated between her and Gendry. It seems paradoxical, but that’s what’s happened. Every night they spend pressed together out behind the equipment shed, Arya feels her heart squeeze tighter when she sees his eyes watching her with some fondness. She also feels her skin hungering in new ways, hands lingering and inching further. 

She’s glad for the two night trail ride and camp out in Mistwood, both to calm her blood and to gather advice from her only trusted personal source on this sort of thing. 

Ygritte can’t stop herself from mocking at least a little though. They’re laying on their sleeping bags, at the head of the circle, blocking the easy entrance to the campsite, the horses hobbled outside. The CITs are leading a great round of songs, just enough to block out their conversation. That’s what this trip always meant, three days and two nights of sunsets and animal sightings and endless songs that will hide in the deepest recesses of Arya’s mind until they are dragged back to the surface another summer. 

And it is a fine time for talks about things you don’t want people overhearing. So while the others are singing classic camp songs about the princess Pat and barges and making friends, Arya interrogates Ygritte.

“So you’ve finally come to source for your knowledge,” Ygritte sing-songs, “Come to a true northerner to teach the ways of the flesh to you soft southerners.”

Arya rolls her eyes. 

“Come on, Ygritte, you know you’re the only person I know here who has any real experience. If Meera’s had any, she’s kept it completely quiet, and if Sansa had, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have shut up about it, even if it were just her wringing her hands over and over.”

Ygritte grins, and flops on her back.

“So have you talked about it, or is this just dreaming?”

Arya sighs again, and rests her head on her knees. 

“We haven’t talked about it, but when we’re alone, it’s all I can think about.”

“Well you have to talk about it. Preferably when neither of you are naked.”

Arya finds herself blushing a bit, and tries to fight it. 

“Not that getting caught up in the moment isn’t great, but it’s better saved for after you cross the line. Also remember, the tuck shop doesn’t sell condoms, and the nurse does not dispense birth control.”

Arya tries to hide her face. This is why she’s talking to Ygritte, she could always nail down the practical things. 

“If you were at home they’d be stashed all over the house,” Arya knew this, Ygritte even had a prescription of Plan B in the bathroom cabinet. “But here you might have to scrounge. Tom or Lem might have rubbers, but you don’t know where either of them have been.”

Arya wrinkles her nose at the thought. 

“I was more asking about...advice about the actual...act.”

Ygritte’s face softens at her voice.

“Well I’m going to assume you both know where everything goes, so...The most important thing I can say is relax, and go slow. Slow and gentle is best the first time, you can save the fire and desperation for later. If you don’t think he can manage that, it will be better for you to be on top. Touch each other a bunch- that’s what it’s all about when it comes down to it, making each other feel good. You might not be able to avoid the awkwardness, but if you take your time, you should be able to avoid pain.”

There’s a hint of sentiment in Ygritte’s voice, and Arya tries desperately to not think too much about how Ygritte gained this knowledge. She may have panicked at the idea of getting married, but Arya already basically considered her a sister.

“And all that stuff about giving your virginity away or having it taken like it’s an object? That’s bullshit. It’s just an experience.”

She throws an arm around Arya. 

“But it is an experience you only get once, so try to make it a good one. Gendry seems a good sort of lad, so I don’t think I’ll have to do any pre-emptive big-brother style terrifying of him. I’ll let you lead me on this one.”

It’s a little embarrassing to think about, but Ygritte’s advice is good. Arya rolls it over and over in her head while the trail ride goes on and finishes and they return to camp. Once again, the woods have given her a spot to contemplate. 

For the rest of the trip, they don’t discuss anything more serious than how betrayed Arya had felt discovering what the song Princess Pat was actually about. 

She doesn’t get a chance to see Gendry the night they get back. Even after only three days away from civilization, the line for the showers is huge. On these campouts she is grateful for the discovery that if no one around you is showering, no one cared if you hadn’t. 

She scrubs herself clean and falls back into the comparative comfort of her camp bed.

The next day seems to crawl by. Each lesson seems to take seven hours. Even during meals, when she can sit next to Gendry and talk to him, it seems like she’s keeping a secret inside and time is just ticking by, second by second. 

And during the afternoon lessons, all of Ygritte’s words and advice dance in her mind, and it all starts to feel like so...so much. She pictures Gendry’s blue eyes in her and her stomach tugs, but then her insides swirl and bubble up into nerves. Arya’s not used to being nervous, she’s always been so sure of herself. 

During dinner, she catches herself thinking on it again, staring at the back of his head again.

Sansa nudges her. 

“What’s eating you?”

Arya shakes her off. 

“Just thinking about...big, life altering stuff.”

Sansa snorts. 

By the time she meets Gendry out at the pier that night, and they wind up at the equipment shed again, she thinks she’s made up her mind. 

Her resolve is tested by his smile at her, huge and eager, even though it’s only been three days. It’s tested even more by his warm fingers, already so familiar to her skin, skimming on her stomach under her t-shirt while he balls it up his hands. 

She must have gone still, because Gendry pulls back from her just a bit, with a perfunctory kiss, and asks. 

“What’s on your mind?”

Arya blinks once, twice, before speaking. 

“I don’t think we should have sex.”

Gendry freezes, his hands dropping the bottom of her t-shirt before he backs away. Her skin mourns the loss.

“Was...was that in the cards?”

Arya narrows her eyes. 

“What exactly did you think all of this was leading to?”

“Like, tonight?”

“I don’t know, maybe not tonight, but like..eventually?”

“And now you’ve changed your mind?”

Arya’s insides are swirling again, and this time it’s not just nerves. She’s so mixed up 

“I just..,gods, so much has happened to me, to all of us really, in just a few years. I think having sex would...complicate it, make things messier. I just don’t think I’m ready for that complication.”

Gendry leans back against the shed. They’ve both at some point slumped to the ground, Arya’s not sure when. She suspects during the kissing.

Arya sighs, and leans back too. 

“I’ve never felt like this about anyone before,” she admits, lolling her head to the side to look at him, “And I don’t want to stop feeling this way...but it’s the end of summer. Maybe it would be better if we just left things the way they are.”

“That’s stupid,”

Arya’s blinks in shock. Those are her words.

“We have a good thing right?”

“..Yes?”

Gendry takes both her hands in his. 

“Then why cut it short? Maybe it won’t last, but maybe it will. What’s the use in just assuming that something’s going to go bad just in case it does? I know I’m going to write you after summer, now that we’re old enough to actually get addresses and things correct. Plus, once we all get our phones back from Brienne’s office, we can call and text, and…”

He trails off a bit, looking very red. This summer, Arya has nearly forgotten that she actually has a mobile phone. That keeping in touch over long distances is indeed possible.

“I’ve never felt like this about anyone before either,” he admits, “And I don’t want to give it up. And the idea of just giving it up without even trying...the idea of doing that just kills me. Especially since this next year might be rough for the both of us.”

Next year. Arya had been fighting to push thoughts of it away. Her last year of school, applying for uni, Jon being away all the time. All without Mum and Dad. And Gendry, thrown into the adult world, trying to navigate training and working and not getting swallowed up by it all…

He throws an arm over her shoulder and pulls her closer to him. Arya nuzzles his neck and kisses him once, twice, on the jaw. 

“I think you’re right though, I don’t think we should have sex.”

Arya snorts, somehow amazed that he’s brought it all the way back around to this. 

“It’s not that I don’t think we’re ready- well, you might be, I don’t know if I am-”

And Arya’s heart hurts watching the uncertainty on his face.

“I don’t know if I’m really ready either,” Arya admits. “When I try to think rationally, I think I am. But when I just let myself feel things…”

She tilts her head up and finds herself nearly getting lost in his blue eyes again. 

“And hearing Ygritte talk about it, I wonder if anyone ever really is. And especially know about you, and well....I think being cautious is a good thing.”

“Agreed,” Gendry says, with a nod, and plants a kiss on her head. 

“But more to the point,” he continues, rubbing her shoulder through her t-shirt, “I think it would be nice, to have something to look forward to, next summer.”

Arya laughs, lightly at first, though it then turns melancholy. She understands anticipation, even as much as it wants to drive her mad.

“I can’t believe we’re actually going out believing that,” she mutters, staring up at the moon and stars, “That this will actually last through to next summer.”

A summer camp romance. It would be completely ridiculous if she hadn’t seen it actually happen before.

“Well we won’t know if we don’t try.”

Soon their words cease and the enthusiastic necking continues. Arya finds her fingers playing at the edge of Gendry’s waist, where a fine line of hair trails it’s way below his shorts, enticingly. 

“So how devoted to this decision are you?” Gendry asks, with an impish grin when her fingers linger. His eyes look eager, but stil uncertain, and Arya steels herself. She is strong on her statement, they should not go all the way, but there’s no reason they can’t fool around some.

“I think at least one of us should keep their pants on at all times.”

Gendry nods, but stills her hand with his left, while his right hand mirrors her movements, lingering on the drawstring of her sleep shorts. Apparently, she gets to go first. That’s fine, she’ll wait her turn.

“Is this okay?” he asks. 

Arya nods. 

“You can look or...touch, just, don’t take them all the way off, just in case someone comes by.”

Carefully, and so, so slowly, he unties the drawstring and pushes the soft black sweat pant fabric partway down her hips. Arya tilts her head and kisses the underside of his chin, to encourage him. He moves to do the same with her knickers, but he pauses, and smirks. 

“Stripes.”

Arya grins against his stubble.

“You seemed to like them.”

From the way he kisses her feverishly while his fingers gently slip their way underneath the waistband of aforementioned little striped shorts, he seems to agree with her statement. 

(In retrospect, Arya will wonder why she thought the idea of someone coming upon Gendry with his hand down her pants was so much less embarrassing than someone coming upon her with her bare bum sticking out, but hindsight and all that)

The next morning, Arya sits down for breakfast and Sansa becomes fixated on the stupid grin on her face, but she won’t say a word. There comes a fine distraction, when it turns out the previous day, Ygritte had managed to give herself her first sunburn of the summer, and her pouting and wincing lets Arya keep her glee to herself a while longer.

Maybe a day later, it’s Meera who Arya can’t contain herself to, admitting, 

“Liked second so much, I waved him around to third.”

At the end of the second week of last session, there’s a surprise announcement on on the overhead. 

“Will all non-unit counselors please gather outside Beric’s office.”

That’s unusual. Arya exchanges a glance with Sansa and then with the rest sitting at her table. 

Some summers, they went the whole time without even so much of a glimpse of Beric, the middle aged, one eyed man who owned the camp itself. Today, everyone gathers, glancing at each other, increasingly confused.

And Beric looks much the same as Arya remembers her few glimpses of him as a child. Brienne stands beside him too. Her face is grim, but she’s never been the most expressive of women. They are framed by Renly, and Alys Karstark, the girls head counselor, who must be here so they can report back to the units. 

Sansa is on one of Arya’s sides, and Gendry the other. 

“What’s this all about?” Arya wonders out loud. 

Sansa shakes her head. 

“I haven’t heard about anyone getting kicked out.”

“And no one’s drowned this year, not on any of our watches,” Gendry adds, and Arya thinks of Pyp.

Arya’s stomach begins to curl into itself. The only time she remembers when the whole staff was brought together like this was the time that Weasel had wandered into the Mistwood and they had had to coordinate with the parks service search and rescue to find her. That had ended well, but it was an absolutely endless two days. She goes over the units in her head, the one’s she’s seen today and tries to think if anyone was missing. 

“I’m sure you’ve wondered why we’ve brought you all here today,” Brienne starts. Beric takes over from here. 

“I’ve been working at Camp Dondarrion for twelve years,” he begins, “And I was a camper here myself. I was here the very first year we opened nearly thirty years ago, when all that was here were five little cabins. That’s why it’s with a heavy heart, that I must announce-”

Arya’s heart drops. 

“That this year will be our final session. Traditional summer camps like this aren’t as profitable as they once were. And Mistwood has been looking to buy our land for some time, to expand the park. The land will continue to be put to use, for families to camp on, for hikers to explore. And all the memories that have been created here, all the friendships, will be the legacy that this camp has left behind.”

There’s a hush that goes over the crowd. Arya’s heart begins to thrum. Beside her she hears Sansa swallow a sob. On her other side, Gendry reaches out and grabs her hand. In front of her, she sees Meera’s hand fly up to cover her mouth and even Ygritte shake her head.

“I know this place means a lot to many of us. So lets finish up this session, and make it one of the best ever. Lets go out with a bang.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a story behind Arya's comment about the song Princess Pat


	9. Chapter 9

The next morning Arya does something she hasn’t even considered in years. She goes to the tuck shop and buys a disposable camera. 

She supposes that she could probably get her phone back from Brienne early, but it’s battery would likely be run down. Besides, she hasn’t used one of these in years.

Thankfully, she’s far from the only person obsessing over it. 

“I was sad I wouldn’t be back next summer,” Meera says from her bed, “But I didn’t think I would never get to come back at all.”

She pauses, and her eyes go half-closed, 

“Now I’m really sad Jojen didn’t get to come this year.”

Arya’s careful about her next words. 

“Has he written you about how his new treatment’s going?”

Meera smiles grimly. 

“The pills are making him tired a lot. Bran’s been writing him too, apparently he tells him some things he won’t tell me…”

Arya smiles. 

“Bran could always do that.”

“If it weren’t for here, I might have never come south,” Ygritte mutters from her spot on her cot. 

Arya tilts her head up. 

“I’ve always meant to ask, how did you end up coming to a camp all the way down here?”

Ygritte rolls on her back and gazes up at the ceiling of the cabin. 

“The church did a bunch of outreach with one of the tribal authorities. And when I was little, I always wanted to go south. Wanted to see the land south of where the Wall used to stand, in the old days.”

Arya frowns, and hugs her pillow to herself. She would admit first hand that she didn’t know much about the Free Folk tribes, even the one Ygritte was a part of, who still lived in the harsh lands of the far north. Their tribes were somehow both supposed to be independent, yet somehow also a part of Westeros. And from what Ygritte said, they were often derided either way. 

“One of the women said that maybe if I kept coming here, I could learn to hide my accent, and maybe I could get a job down here, the opportunities are better, the pay too. Most of the others laughed at me wanting to leave the station. They think anyone who does so is equal parts a fool and a traitor.”

Her serious comments are cut off by Meera laughing when Arya snaps a couple of pictures of the inside of the cabin.

She’s been taking pictures of everything. The mess hall, the stables, even the path leading up to the bathrooms. 

“I don’t want to forget how anything here looks,” she admits at night to Gendry, when she turns on the auto-flash and takes a few pictures of the lake and pier. 

“I don’t think we could,” Gendry says. He’s leaned back, supporting himself on one arm. When she snaps the last picture, he reaches and takes one of her hands. 

“This doesn’t change anything we talked about before,” he tells her quietly, “We will make it out of this place, back into the real world.”

She snuggles against his side, and hopes he’s right. She breathes in a deep breath of his skin and sunscreen. She wonders what he will smell like when it’s not summer.

She thinks this when he sits beside her during the last session’s play. She snaps a picture right at the moment that Sansa!Wendy gives Margaery!Peter her kiss on a string. She has the flash off, so she doesn’t even get yelled at for it. She’ll give it to Sansa, as a souvenir. When the show’s over, Arya muses that she hasn’t seen Sansa so happy in far too long.

On the last day of proper riding lessons, Arya is brushing old Nan, and asks Ygritte, 

“Do we know what’s going to happen to the horses?”

“Beric says they were purchased by the parks service. They’re going to set up trail rides.”

Arya nods. 

“That’s good, I guess,”

She pets Nan’s mane. She really is getting old, and gets tired so easily. It makes Arya sad to think of her being ridden by pushy tourists, but maybe they’ll reserve her for the elderly and little kids. 

There’s the sound of the stable door opening. 

“Sorry,” Shireen says, sticking her head in. Gendry’s behind her, “I wanted to see if I could ride a little bit before you closed up.”

Gendry shrugs, a bit sheepish. 

“And I haven’t gotten to all summer.”

Ygritte agrees. 

“We’ll saddle up and take a tour. You just have to help up clean up after.”

Arya hands Nan over to Shireen, who still isn’t a terribly confident rider, and leads Gendry over to Storm, a tall black geldling. 

“He looks scary, but he’s good.”

Gendry looks him up and down. 

“He’s not the one who threw Willas Tyrell is he?”

Ygritte snorts. Like a horse who had so gravely injured a rider would still be at camp and not retired. 

It’s late enough, nearly dinner time, that the sky is golden and pink, and the trail around the camp is nearly empty. 

Arya takes up the rear, and watches Gendry in the saddle. 

“You’re better than you were before,” she comments. As kids, he was one of the stiffest riders she’d ever seen. 

“I guess I’ve learned to go with the flow.”

That’s good, Arya thinks as she watches. Horses are not great with riders who try to insist upon their own way. 

As the ride continues, she hears Ygritte quietly musing. 

“I’m going to miss this.”

Arya raises an eyebrow. 

“I thought there were lots of horses on the station?”

“There are,” she says, “but they’re for work. I haven’t gotten to ride for fun since secondary school and my barrel-racing days-”

She spares a glance back at Arya. 

“You would love that, all rodeo sports, and barrel racing especially is an adrenaline junkie sport if there ever was one. But everyone seems to think I’m too old for things like that now.”

Arya can’t see Shireen’s face, but she can practically hear her frown.

“So you’re just expected to work all the time now? Aren’t you only like twenty?”

Ygritte nods. 

“I signed up to do a cultural program at one of the universities near Cerwyn…”

Arya’s eyes brighten. 

“That’s really close to Winterfell! We’d get to see you more.”

Ygritte smiles. 

“Don’t want to count my chickens yet though, I haven’t been accepted yet. Though…” she says slowly, “It might be my last chance to really grab a chance at something fun, at life below the wall, before adulthood really sets in.”

Arya purses her lips in thought, watching the back of Ygritte’s head in the darkening sun as they make the last turn to return to the stables. 

“Ygritte,” she says, suddenly. “Do counselors still do the polar bear swim the morning after the last campers leave?”

Ygritte snorts, loudly.

“Of course you’d bring that up. I don’t think anyone’s been fool enough these last couple years-”

“What’s the polar bear swim?” Shireen asks. 

Gendry cuts in.

“It’s when the counselors who have spent the summer going completely mad-”

Arya sticks out her tongue. 

“-go out in the early morning, like 5am, and swim from the shore to the island and back-”

Shireen frowns, 

“That doesn’t sound so bad-”

“Starkers,” Gendry finishes.

Shireen giggles. 

“Really Arya?”

Arya pouts. 

“I’ve never had the guts before. I think I’ll end the summer by proving I do now.”

The others laugh, but as the ride ends and they tack up the horses and sweep out the stables, she grows more and more certain.

The days wind down. Even the evenings come faster, as daylight hours shorten as the time turns towards autumn. Peter Pan shows it’s last show. Arya leads her last rides. And on the last night, there’s the biggest lake front beach party Arya’s seen at the camp.

The day the campers leave, Arya has more signatures on her shirt than she’s ever had in previous years. She’s given an excess of hugs and an embarrassment of friendship bracelets. 

And then the buses leave, and the counselors have one last day. Activities are packed up, cabins swept and closed. 

Arya tosses on her cot the last night. 

“Do you think anyone else will do the swim in the morning?”

Meera snorts and Ygritte shakes her head. 

“No one’s as mad as you Arya.”

And indeed, when Arya wakes in the eerie electric blue of pre-dawn, she finds herself the only one awake. 

Except, when she reaches the pier, for Gendry. He’s seated, in his lifeguard uniform, beside a stack of towels. 

“Think I’ll have any companions?” she asks. 

“Nope, but I couldn’t let you go out without a lifeguard on duty could I?”

They sit in companionable silence, and Gendry tilts his head while he watches her. 

She catches his eye, and frowns at his expression. 

“What is it?”

Gendry bites his lip before answering. 

“You should take the bus to King’s Landing with us today,” he blurts out, “I know you said you used to ride the train from there to Winterfell with your dad all the time, and tickets aren’t too expensive, and I just thought…”

He’s blabbering, and Arya feels a smile sprout on her face. 

“What’s this about?” she asks simply. 

Gendry flushes. 

“I’d like to introduce you to Mr Davos. To...uhh…”

“Prove I’m real and not ‘my girlfriend from Lys, you haven’t met her’?”

He ducks his head, embarrassed. Arya brightens. 

“I’d love to. I’ll tell everyone at breakfast. Train tickets won’t be anything, we get paid today any how.”

She snuggles against his side for a moment. Staring off onto the lake, she finally says, 

“Guess it’s just me this time.”

She stands, and begins to peel off her shirt, when she hears a, 

“Wait!” from behind her. 

She turns, and is surprised to see Shireen running up behind her. 

“Didn’t want to make you do it alone!” The younger girl says brightly. She peels her shirt straight off and throws it on the pier. Arya can just barely see Gendry turn bright red and turn away, as she follows Shireen’s lead and strips in the cool morning air. 

They leave their clothes in a pile on the pier, and each jump into the lake with loud squeals. Arya will admit she squeals too, even in August, it’s very cold. Arya smirks to herself when she realizes her naked rear end is probably sticking out of the water, and Gendry’s probably trying not to stare because Shireen’s beside her. 

She is beside her too, keeping pace with Arya’s breast stroke with ease. They both rise up in front of the island before dipping back other and reversing direction.

Arya bursts up through the water at the pier with a deep gasp, and Shireen does much the same beside her. Gendry throws the pile of towels at the both of them, and Shireen explodes with a giggle. 

“I’ve never done anything like that before,” she admits. Her face is flushed red and she is positively beaming.

Arya grins. 

“That’s what summer camp’s all about.”

The last morning begins with everyone packing their bags, retrieving their phones from the lock box in Beric’s office, and picking up their paychecks. Even the office is picked clean.

(Arya squeals a bit seeing hers. Even if she will probably be having a more regular job this school year, this feels different).

The last breakfast with just the staff is pretty somber. Bran and Sansa barely even bat an eye when she tells them that she’ll be coming home to Winterfell on the train later. She sees

Even when everyone’s gathering around the buses, there are still endless delays before everyone boards. Arya watches Gendry making a call (she’s impressed he’s getting service this far out), and takes the chance for another round of goodbyes.

Meera hugs Arya. 

“I’ll send a bunch of emails before I leave for the corps. We do get snail mail out in the sticks, so letters will keep coming too.”

Ygritte hugs her and then pats her on the head. 

“I might hang around Winterfell a few days before going home. So don’t get in too much trouble, or I’ll have to come and retrieve you.”

Arya’s stomach tightens even more, at even getting on the different bus. She takes a seat between Gendry and Shireen, and cranes her neck around. 

She watches Beric and Brienne as they fade into the distance. When she turns back front, she sniffles, and Gendry reaches over and takes her hand. Butterflies flutter to life in her stomach, and stay aflight the whole ride. It’s not terribly long, maybe two hours, and they spend the trip pointing out the windows and looking at pictures on Shireen’s phone.

When they get closer to civilization, Arya’s phone lights up, with a series of texts from Jon over the past weeks. All panicking about the letter he’d send Ygritte, so certain that he’d completely ruined everything and she would never speak to him again.

The ride continues on, and Arya begins to get stiff from sitting.

“The bus stop is right by the cafe,” Shireen mentions, “We should have lunch before walking back to the house.”

Gendry nods and Arya asks, 

“How far do you live from the stop.”

“Only about a half a mile. The stop is right by the docks, and that’s where Mr Davos works,” Shireen frowns for a moment, “Have you ever been to King’s Landing?”

Arya nods. 

“I used to ride the train with my dad when he had to visit for work sometimes. I remember it was hot and it stunk.”

Gendry laughs. 

“I think you must have been visiting when the binmen were on strike. They do that a lot.”

Shireen makes a face. 

“Weren’t they striking when we left this summer?”

“Well then they must have worked it out by now.”

Arya likes watching King’s Landing come up in the windows. It’s not the parts she’s used to seeing, the posh buildings and skyscrapers that held all the businesses Dad had come to do business with. It’s not as hot as the Stormlands here, but it still somehow feels more oppressive. It’s easier when they take a turn and begin pulling up beside the harbour with all the boats docked and the men unlocking them. Then the air smells crisp and sharp, with a tang of fish.

Getting off the bus after the two hour ride is a relief. 

The cafe is a tiny dockside place with free coffee. Arya’s not exceptionally hungry, so while they wait for their sandwiches, she pulls out her phone and starts showing her own pictures. 

“The black one’s Shaggydog, he’s Rickon’s. The one laying on top of his is Summer, he’s Bran’s. Then Grey Wind and Ghost.”

Shireen’s eyes are huge. 

“Where do you keep them all?”

Arya smiles softly. 

“Winterfell’s more rural than here. It’s not the sticks or anything, but we have a big yard and there’s woods behind the house.”

When she’s finished, Shireen pulls out her own phone, showing her a lineup of young men, all with the same features. 

“Dale, Allard, Matthos, Maris, Devan, Stan and Steffon. They’re Mr and Mrs Seaworth’s other sons.”

Arya reaches out and swats Gendry on the shoulder. 

“You never mentioned you had other foster siblings.”

Gendry shrugs. 

“They’re all grown up and moved away now.”

“We don’t see them much,” Shireen admits, “But Steffon has a boat that he’s fixing up at his dad’s, so he comes by most weekends to work on it.”

That piques Arya’s curiosity. She’s always had a thing for boats. Being from a family who swam, it only seemed natural. She thinks too, that both Gendry and Shireen refer to the Seaworths by their first names, but always with Mr and Mrs in front, and wonders what they must have been like as parents. Seven sons and then taking in fosters is no easy feat. 

After lunch, Gendry takes the lead and the three of them walk towards where he says the Seaworth’s house is. The area turns quickly to houses, but it’s not fancy like much of King’s Landing. There’s cracks in the pavement and chain link fences, but it feels homey. There are children out playing in yards and Arya even spots a clothesline. 

The Seaworth’s house is modest, but the yard is kept and it’s clearly lived in. There are shoes on the porch and stuff piled in the back of the truck parked in the driveway. Looking at it, Arya suddenly feels awkward, but thankfully, Shireen runs ahead to open the door. 

Arya freezes in her spot. Gendry tugs her arm. 

“Come on, don’t choose now to be chicken.”

The door opens and Shireen throws her arms around the older woman who answers the door, and Arya swallows her fear. 

The Seaworths are older than she expected, Mr Davos has grey hair and a short beard and the rotund sort of build she would expect of Father Christmas. He also greets her with a warm handshake. 

“We were told you would be stopping by, but weren’t sure if you would show.”

Arya assumes that means they weren’t sure she was real.

And Gendry darts upstairs, to retrieve something he says. Shireen goes to put her bags away, and Marya offers Arya a cup of tea while she waits. 

“Thank you,” Arya says, sitting at the little kitchen table. She glances around at the house. 

“How on earth did you stuff seven sons here?” she blurts out. Davos laughs. 

“After a while, they sort of pile up on top of each other.”

“Do you have siblings?” Marya asks her. 

Arya smiles over her tea. 

“Three brothers, one sister, and a cousin who might as well be another brother. And I’m right in the middle.”

She takes another sip. 

“We’re from up north though. Much more of a rural area, much more room.”

Marya’s smiling but her eyes are focused, like she wants to say something. 

Davos does. 

“How is he doing?” he asks, softly, “Both of them, if you know. Was going to camp this summer a good thing?”

Arya smiles wider. 

“I think it was good for all of us. I’d never met Shireen of course, but I knew Gendry from when we used to go as kids.”

“Really?” Marya asks, “That’s a bit of a story to tell.”

Arya’s smiles turns grim. 

“The last summer my siblings and I went, our father passed away. It’s been four years. Four years since I’d seen Gendry too. I know it's been a hard few years for him, and it was for us too. I think we needed this summer, we really did. It really did feel like a story. It made us all sad to find out the camp is closing this year, but I am glad I got to go again.”

She finishes her tea. 

“I should be getting to the train station soon though,”

“I’ll take her on the bike,” Gendry’s voice says from behind the kitchen. He’s holding two photos in his hands, “But I wanted to show everyone this first.”

He passes it over to Arya at the table and her eyes go wide. 

“I didn’t know you still had this.”

Staring back at her is the Brotherhood, their first summer together. Her and Gendry in the center, and Hot Pie and Lommy and little Weasel. Even Jon’s off to the side, invited, but not really part of it. 

She feels tears almost leaking free. She’s missing a front tooth in the first picture. 

The second is her and her siblings, that last summer. She has that awful haircut, the one that looked like she’d cut it herself. She runs a finger along it, and names each person for Davos and Marya. 

“Keep them,” Gendry tells her, “I made copies a while ago.”

Arya wipes her face. 

“Thank you.”

She returns her teacup to the sink, and thanks Marya again. 

“I’ll bring the bike around,” Gendry says. Davos fixes him with a stern gaze. 

“Use the extra helmet,”

Gendry shakes his head. 

“I will.”

When he leaves, Arya hoists her bag onto her back. She looks to Davos and Marya. 

“Thank you for having me…” she trails off a bit. “Take care of him, since i can’t be here.”

She pauses, and finds a bit of paper in her pocket, and writes down her cell number, and passes it to them.

“He has it, but...just in case.”

The bike, it turns out, is a nearly twenty year old motorbike with dull paint and an occasional bit of rust. Arya still has to quash the squeal at getting to ride on it. 

“It’s Dale’s,” Gendry explains, “But he has a wife and a baby now, so isn’t allowed to do anything this deadly on the regular. So now I get to ride it to work.”

He hands her the second helmet and she straps it on. She watches Gendry’s back as he mounts the bike, and motions for her to join him. 

Her stomach is fluttering again, just like it was earlier, when she wraps her arms around his middle, feeling his warm skin under his t-shirt. Behind her, she hears a window open and Shireen sticks her head out. 

“Goodbye Arya!”.

She waves over her shoulder, and turns her attention back to Gendry. 

Before he can start the bike and drown out her voice, she asks, feeling nearly mouse-like. 

“If I invited you to come north for Christmas...would you come?”

Gendry turns, and is still. Then a smile grows on his face. 

“I’d love to. Of course, school and work would have to work out right…”

Arya turns her face and presses her cheek into his back. 

The summer is coming to an end. But it seems the seasons will keep on turning.


End file.
